The Political Economy of Privatisation in Africa

‘Privatisation’ has become one of the magic wands in the brave new world of structural adjustment and stabilisation in Africa. Privatisation means a lot of things: the transfer of public sector assets to the private sector; the creation of a private sector through the provision of an ‘enabling environment’ by liberalisation of the economy; encouragement of the private sector to provide hitherto publicly financed goods. All of these versions or components of privatisation are taking place in Africa. In a considerable number of countries, governments have put up for sale parastatals or public enterprises that had previously assumed the ‘commanding heights’ of the economy. Never mind that these heights were never dizzying. The private sector is being actively courted by governments and economies are being liberalised to give greater play to market forces. Evidence so far is that privatisation is not producing the expected results and there is considerable debate in both academic and official circles on why privatisation has not fulfilled its promise. The problem seems to be not privatisation per se, but the ideological and policy context within which this process is occurring. Privatisation is taking place as part of the stabilisation and structural adjustment programmes which constitute the dominant policy initiatives of the Bretton Woods institutions in Africa.