Price control of local foodstuffs in Kumasi, Ghana, 1979

Abstract

This chapter centers on Ghana’s 1979 “housecleaning” anti-corruption exercise led by J.J. Rawlings. Intensified price controls legitimated violent attacks on markets and stores, selling off goods at arbitrary low prices and widespread confiscations. A history of price controls since colonial times shows ideological links emerging to corruption and falling real incomes, and compares the effects of various enforcement episodes and a currency exchange on food supplies and commercial practices. Detailed ethnographic accounts of raids, demolitions, meetings and negotiations in Kumasi Central Market contrast the treatment of women traders with that of men in informal production, and the relative impact on wealthier and poorer traders.