The Big Scam Called Privatisation: How Politicians Sell Ghana’s Future

For decades, successive governments in Ghana have sold Ghanaians a lie, that privatisation is the magic wand that turns failing state enterprises into profitable giants. We were told that the government, being a “bad manager,” had no business running companies, and that selling them off would guarantee efficiency, profitability, and sustainability. But today, the evidence is overwhelming: privatisation has been nothing but a grand scheme for looting, a deliberate betrayal of the people in favour of political cronies and foreign interests.

Take Ghana Telecommunications Company (Ghana Telecom), once a proud national asset. It was paraded before us as a liability that the government could no longer carry. We were assured that private ownership would revive it. What has been the outcome? After several takeovers, first Vodafone, now Telecel, the company is still staggering, unable to stand tall in a sector it once dominated. Privatisation did not save it. It stripped it from the people and handed it to profit-seekers who cared less about national development.

Meanwhile, the wider telecommunications industry is collapsing under the weight of inefficiency. MTN Ghana, once hailed as the best in Africa, has become a nightmare for its customers. Calls drop endlessly, internet services crawl like a snail, and mobile money, once the pride of Ghana’s digital economy, is now unreliable, riddled with delays and constant failures.

The human cost is brutal. MoMo vendors are closing shop, unable to cope with unreliable services that drive customers away. Small businesses that depend on MoMo for payments are suffering daily, their supply chains breaking down because transactions cannot go through on time. In a country where MoMo has become the lifeblood of the economy, this network collapse is nothing short of economic sabotage.

And here lies the damning question: if the government sold Ghana Telecom to “save” it, then why is it worse off today? Why are genuinely private companies in Ghana thriving while former state-owned corporations are either dead or gasping for air? The answer is simple: these so-called privatisations are scams. They are not genuine sales to capable investors. They are political handovers, state capture disguised as reform. If we pulled back the curtain, we would see the true owners of many of these “privatised” firms are none other than our own politicians and their cronies.

Privatisation in Ghana has not been about growth or efficiency. It has been about plunder. It has been about a greedy few using state power to dispossess the people of what is rightfully theirs. That is why, decades after these sales, the results are the same: collapsed companies, frustrated citizens, and a private sector that looks more like a cartel than a competitive market.

It is time to call privatisation what it really is in Ghana, economic looting through legalised theft. If the problem was truly about government inefficiency, then leadership and accountability were the solutions, not selling national assets on a silver platter. Instead, politicians chose the easy route: hand state assets to themselves and their friends under the cover of “reform,” leaving Ghanaians to bear the pain.

Ghanaians deserve better. We deserve networks that work, services that empower businesses, and leaders who protect national assets instead of selling them off like scraps at a marketplace. The collapse of Ghana Telecom and the disgraceful failures of our telecom giants today should serve as a national wake-up call: privatisation, as practised in this country, is nothing but economic sabotage.

The time has come for citizens, civil society organisations, and parliament to demand answers. Every shady privatisation deal must be investigated, and those who looted state assets under false pretences must be held accountable. If we do not rise now, more of our future will be sold off in the name of reform. This is not just an economic fight, it is a fight for our national dignity and survival.

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