Recasting maritime governance in Ghana: the neo-developmental state and the Port of Tema

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn Africa, as elsewhere, ports are a telling indicator of the tenor of political power and the contests and shifting fortunes among ruling groups. Glaringly evident in the long era of imperial expansion, this is equally true in the present period of late-capitalist commercial acceleration and consolidation. With a focus on Ghana's port of Tema, a leading edge of containerised trade serving a vast swath of the West African sub-region, this essay examines the struggles between state agencies, indigenous capital, and the world's leading multinational shipping and logistics firms invested in port expansion. Rather than the predicted triumph of multinational concerns, the case of Tema reveals the persistent grip of Ghana's national port authority. Deftly capitalising on its claims over land, labour and legislation, this state body also mobilises preferential access to development assistance and financial aid. The result is a port defined by the aspirations and autonomous capacities of what may be described as a neo-developmental state. Both grounded in historical precedent and fragile in its configuration of multiplex and competing interests, Tema lays bare the complex forces at stake in the revitalisation of maritime frontiers now occurring across the African continent.