Ghana Signs a Further Loan Agreement With the United States | July 1968

Thursday, July 18th 1968.

Footage of the signing ceremony of a loan agreement between Ghana and the United States for an amount totalling 15.3 Million Cedis (£7.65 Million Sterling) at Osu Castle in Accra.

The countries were represented by Brigadier Akwasi Afrifa, Ghana's Commissioner for Finance, and Mr. J.W. Foley, Charge D'Affaires at the U.S. Embassy. The loan was to cover imports of American commercial goods.

The loan was repayable in 40 years with a 10-year period of grace, and carried a 2 per cent interest rate over the remaining years.

Up this point, the US had granted Ghana 66.9 Million New Cedis (£33.45 Million Sterling) in loans since February 1966.

Brigadier Afrifa asked Mr. Foley to convey to the government and people of the United States, the appreciation of the National Liberation Council (NLC) and the people of Ghana for their "kind gesture" Mr. Foley said that the agreement was further tangible evidence of America's continuing confidence in the will and ability of Ghana to take the necessary measures for the stabilisation of the country's economy and for laying the foundations of renewed economic growth.

The ceremony was also attended by the Ghanaian Commissioner for Economic Affairs Mr. Emmanuel Omaboe.

Source: Reuters News Archive.

Notes:

1. The National Liberation Council (NLC), the ruling junta of Ghana, overthrew the government of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah in February 1966.

2. The coup, led by Colonel Emmanuel Kotoka who was assisted by Major Akwasi Afrifa and Mr. John Harlley of the police, received assistance and encouragement from the CIA Station Chief in Accra, John Stockwell.

3. R. Y. Adu-Asare, a journalist, contends that Stockwell told him at a book launch of his book "In Search of Enemies" at Howard University in 1978 that Colonel Kotoka and Major Afrifa received money from the CIA, but would not disclose the precise amounts.

4. On March 11th 1965 at a meeting between John Alexander McCone, the head of the CIA and William Mahoney, the US Ambassadore to Ghana, Mahoney expressed the opinion that Nkrumah would be overthrown within a year.He believed that a coup was being prepared by Generals Stephen Otu and Joseph Ankrah of the army and John Harlley, the police chief.

5. A memorandum dated May 25th 1965 from Robert W. Komer of the National Security Council (NSC) to McGeorge Bundy, President Lyndon Johnson's Special Assistant for National Security Affairs revealed that the coup plotters in Ghana were regularly updating the Americans about their conspiracy, and that Britain and France were co-ordinating economic pressure on Nkrumah's government.

6. The coup was postponed several times, apparently to the great disappointment of younger officers in the Ghanaian military, until the putsch of February 1966 that brought the NLC to power.

7. The NLC was particularly keen to mend what was seen as a marked deterioration of relations between Nkrumah-led Ghana and the West. General Ankrah specifically told the US Ambassador that he was pivoting his administration away from the USSR and China to the US and Britain. In his book, The Ghana Coup, Afrifa, who had been promoted from major to colonel wrote of his regret that Nkrumah had antagonised the West by developing close ties to the communist and socialist world. He wrote with great enthusiasm about his belief in British values. In March 1966, Komer of the NSC informed President Johnson that the NLC was "extremely pro-Western".

8. The NLC wanted the US government to recognise them as soon as the coup was accomplished (and to give Ghana economic aid), but the US only did so after several African nations had done this so as not to invite accusations of US involvement in the coup.

9. In a letter from General Ankrah to President Johnson dated March 24 1966, Ankrah requested economic and food aid from the US. The US, which had already airlifted 25 tons of canned milk that month, requested that Ghana give it Soviet made equipment of the sort used by the North Vietnamese against American forces in Vietnam.

10. The US provided economic and food aid, as well as technical assistance to Ghana between 1966 and 1968. The NLC supported the US in diplomatic matters concerning Vietnam and others, but were disappointed that the US did not provide military assistance. This led to a deterioration with the NLC which also saw the issue of decolonisation in Portuguese Africa and South Africa & Rhodesia differently from the US. The US also failed to reach a cocoa agreement with Ghana.

Sources:

"Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, Volume XXIV, Africa, Ghana (Documents 235-274)". Published by the U.S. State Department.

Link: "Ghana",

See also:

"Why Afrifa Could Not Have Been My Hero" by R.Y. Adu-Asare, (2002).

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