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For many Ghanaians, the word “Kalabule” immediately evokes images of scarce goods, inflated prices and a frantic scramble to find basic commodities. But where did the word and the culture it came to represent come from?
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For many Ghanaians, the word “Kalabule” immediately evokes images of scarce goods, inflated prices and a frantic scramble to find basic commodities.
But where did the word and the culture it came to represent come from?
Major Patrick Adjei-Ampofo, who served during the Acheampong era, has offered a first-hand account of how Ghana’s notorious black-market economy took shape, tracing its roots to government price controls and the shortages that followed.
Speaking to Kafui Dey in an interview, Major Adjei-Ampofo recalled a period when the government had placed controls on the prices of essential commodities including sugar, milk and sardines.
The intention was straightforward: keep basic goods affordable for ordinary Ghanaians.
But, according to the Major, the policy created a gap between the official price of a commodity and what people were actually willing to pay for it.
And in that gap, Kalabule was born.
“The control price is you’re supposed to sell at a particular level , you can’t go above it,” Major Ampofo explained. “If you hold it, you are in trouble.”
With commodities becoming difficult to find, access itself became valuable.
Major Adjei-Ampofo describes how an informal network began to emerge, one built not necessarily on shops and warehouses, but on connections.
Someone knew someone at a distribution point. That person could help them obtain scarce goods.
The goods would then change hands several times, with each person adding a margin. Major Adjei-Ampofo calls it “catch and throw.”
“You have the influence of getting by knowing somebody at a distribution point who will help you and then you go and buy, and then you sell to somebody,” he said.
“And that person will also sell to another person, adding their margins as they go along.”
By the time the commodity reached the final consumer, its official price could bear little resemblance to the price actually being demanded.
“Kalabule came as a result of this catch and throw,” Ampong said.
What began as an attempt to make essential goods affordable had, in his account, created an environment where who you knew could determine what you could buy and how much you would pay for it.
But the story did not stop at Ghana’s markets.
According to Major Adjei-Ampofo, the price difference created another lucrative opportunity: smuggling across the border into Togo.
Goods that were relatively cheap in Ghana because of price controls could be sold at considerably higher prices in Togo, where they attracted buyers.
Major Adjei-Ampofo remembers the incentive vividly.
“You could get a tin of milk at a very cheap price. You go across to Togo and you sell it, and you make a profit,” he said.
The scale, he recalled, became enormous.
“It was so much smuggling… it turned out that about 40 percent of it was going out.”
The result was a vicious cycle.
Goods intended for Ghanaian consumers were leaving the country. Scarcity became worse. Those who could obtain the commodities gained an opportunity to make money, while ordinary consumers faced increasing difficulty finding them.
And as goods moved across the border, another problem intensified: pressure on Ghana’s currency.
Major Adjei-Ampofo links the economic difficulties of the period to the wider global economic crisis, particularly the 1975–76 oil crisis, arguing that the hardship Ghana experienced cannot be explained simply as a consequence of domestic mismanagement.
As the Cedi weakened against the CFA franc, the incentive to move goods across the border became even more attractive.
What had started as a price-control problem had therefore evolved into something much bigger affecting the availability of commodities, encouraging informal trading and smuggling, and putting additional pressure on the country’s already struggling economy.
For a generation of Ghanaians, “Kalabule” would eventually become more than a description of illegal profiteering.
It became a word that captured an entire era of shortages, connections, survival and the search for profit in an economy under severe strain.
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