Johnson Aba Ame Obekpa
Department of Social Studies
College of Education Katsina- Ala
08104191404
Abstract
This paper examines the impact of privatization and commercialization on the development of Africa.It contends thatprivatization and commercialization are components of the liberal and neo – liberal ideology of capitalism. The paper posits that the origin of privatization and commercializationin Africa can be traced to the conditionalities of Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) introduced to the continent following the challenges that trailed the nationalization of enterprises. The paper shows that prior to the introduction of privatization and commercialization, the economy of African states was almost a command one with a wide range of government control. However, following poor performance leading to low output, poor returns and an over-bloated workforce, as well as corruption, privatization and commercialization became the panacea to the challenges to these economies.The paper shows that to some extent, privatization and commercialization enhanced the output of some enterprises and promoted efficiency but overall, it failed to achieve the touted objectives. The paper shows that in spite of the theoretical arguments in favour of privatization and commercialization, the policy has not been able to impact significantly on development of African states due to major lapses in the implementation process. The paper therefore calls for more efforts to address corruption and increased prudence in the management of the Africa’s resources.
