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The purpose of this paper is to explicate how newly independent nations combined local and international resources to plan and build large engineering projects aimed at enhancing economic development. It discusses the key factors and issues related to the planning and building of the Akosombo Dam and related townships from 1962 to 1967.

The assessment is based on the archival information from the Volta River Authority together with other archival government data and interview transcripts before, during and after the completion (from the 1950s to the 1960s) of the Volta River Project (VRP).

The paper presents insights from the VRP in newly independent Ghana and demonstrates how multiple international firms combine with host country stakeholders to usher in one of the most important engineering projects in post-colonial Africa. It also highlights how poor bargaining power and weak integration of the project outcome to future development objectives, with negligence by succeeding political actors, could inhibit the full achievement of intended long-term project outcomes.

Most of the conclusions are drawn from a single project within one country and would need to be supported by additional multi-country research. The study also presents an opportunity to explore how lessons learnt could influence policymaking in new, large and complex infrastructure projects.

The paper reviews antecedents, processes and outcomes of a major post-independence infrastructure project in a sub-Saharan African country.

Just over two decades ago, Hopwood criticised accounting researchers for how little they knew of the actual functioning of accounting in organisational contexts. Recently, Parker and Roffey reminded us that this is still the case. A new wave of critical and interpretive researchers have not been able to ground their theorising in the actual practice of accounting. This paper attempts to explicate the negotiated order perspective as a social theory that may help to better understand accounting in its organisational context. The paper not only presents the theoretical constructs of the negotiated order perspective but also a case (Volta River Authority) illustration of how the perspective could help in appreciating accounting practice within organisations and society.

The purpose of this paper is to present a comprehensive review of the programmes being implemented with a view to ascertaining if they adequately address the energy needs of the poor more holistically and sustainably.

The content of this desktop review is based on information collected through a review of available energy policy documents from the Ghana Government and related governmental agencies, such as the Energy Commission and Ghana Statistical Services, international energy-related agencies, such as the International Energy Agency (World Vision, 2013), as well as other related web searches. Additionally, global and Sub-Saharan African energy access documents were reviewed by analysing secondary data from the World Bank and UN policy reports, statistical data, strategies, regulations, protocols and other related documents (World Vision, 2013). Furthermore, some policy documents on energy access and usage were explored mainly from Senegal and Ghana to ascertain governments’ policies, regulations and strategies in the implementation of energy access policies.

The paper offers all the various strategies being implemented in an attempt to establish a foothold on the problem of affording the poor with clean and affordable energies. The paper also presents the rich experiences of Senegal in its bid to see expanded access in liquefied petroleum gas usage by residential consumers.

The paper provides some policy and theoretical implications for improving Ghana’s energy access.

Using the recent attempts by the Ghanaian Government to privatize its urban water services, this paper seeks to understand the role and functioning of accounting within the global move to “reinvent government.”

Unlike the attempts made in other African countries such as Kenya and Tanzania, the case of Ghana is interesting because of the vociferousness and length of the debate that has been going on. Using Bourdieu's notion of field and capital and Foucault's idea of governmentality, and relying on a variety of archival documents and interviews with 27 key participants, the study examines the positioning of accounting practices, vocabulary and experts in this debate.

The study shows how accounting is enlisted at an almost sub‐conscious level, how its use can engender significant resistance and how accounting can be used to position the debate in various terms, including “profitability” “affordability” and “accountability.”

The paper shows that within new democracies such as Ghana policy‐making requires the enlistment of technologies of government – including accounting – to articulate and justify divergent policy options.

The findings of the paper have implications for regional policy‐makers and their various development partners.

Researchers and practitioners working in the area of public sector management and reforms should find significant value in the paper.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the increasing role of financial auditing in the fight against government sector fraud and financial mismanagement in Ghana, Africa. Using a Foucauldian‐inspired theoretical framing, the paper explores the growing cases of fraud in the Ghanaian public sector and the technologies of government that have been enlisted to combat it. The paper also discusses the particular interests that are likely served by the push for financial audits as the preferred weapon for fighting government sector fraud in the country.

The approach of the paper is qualitative involving the use of a variety of archival material and interviews with employees of the Ghana Audit Service, the Controller and Accountant‐General's Department, and global agencies like the World Bank and United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

The paper finds that contrary to the view of “auditing as an alien phenomenon in most parts of the Third World, certainly Africa,” financial auditing is the preferred approach to fighting government sector fraud in Ghana. The paper also shows that financial auditing is privileged over other technologies of government, in this context, largely because it reinforces the hegemony of international development agencies like the World Bank and the imperialism of the big four accounting firms.

The paper adds insight into the increasing role of financial auditing in the fight against government sector fraud and financial mismanagement in Ghana.

Sustained access to efficient electricity plays an essential role in improving living conditions of people and contributes to the economic development of the nation as a whole. Volta River Authority (VRA) mainly manages the generation plants (hydropower sources and thermal plants) alongside independent power producers (IPPs). Power generation in the country has been influenced by myriads of factors. Thus, the purpose of this study is to assess the key risk factors affecting renewable energy of IPPs set-up project in Ghana.

Quantitative approach was adopted for the study. Empirical investigation was carried out using the survey approach. The likelihood of occurrence of the risk and the degree of impact of same motivated the use of risk significance index to analyze the data and make deductions from the results.

From the study, three key risk factors have high level of severity, which include long and complex procedures for authorization of project activities, stability of the policy environment and ease of obtaining rights to land. These risks could be found in the business/strategic risks and policy/regulatory risks categories, respectively. A total of 25 key risk factors had moderate level of severity and 12 key risk factors have low level of severity on renewable energy IPP set up projects.

Top-ranked risk factors require maximum attention. The identified risks should be alleviated with strategies to reduce levels of severity by targeting either the likelihood of occurrence or the level of impact. This will serve as a catalyze to promoting renewable energy IPP set-up projects in Ghana.

Key contribution of the paper to the body of knowledge is demonstrated by the empirical evidence of the risks IPPs are likely to encounter in setting up renewable energy plants in Ghana. The distinctive attribute of this study is further demonstrated by the fact that it focused on the set-up stage, which is a critical stage in the renewable energy provision value chain.

This proposal is a case study of the Belo Monte dam. The article deals with human rights and environmental violations arising from the construction of the Belo Monte Hydroelectric Power Plant in the northern region of Brazil. This paper aims to evidence human rights violations brought by the construction Belo Monte dam, a glimpse of the COVID-19 scenario and how Brazilian regulation allowed those violations.

To achieve the objective of this article, the Brazilian norms, public policies and the current situation of the affected communities were analyzed, focusing on the human rights violations and the historical timeline of this mega-project. The analysis was directed to the hardcore social sciences, considering analytical and qualitative research.

The data gathered and the references consulted proved that many human rights violations occurred and that the vulnerability of indigenous and local people increased with the construction of the Belo Monte Hydroelectric Power Plant in the northern region of Brazil. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated this adverse scenario since indigenous and local people already had their vulnerabilities increased with the construction of Belo Monte.

The Belo Monte Dam has had severe and irreversible impacts on the lives of local communities, especially indigenous peoples, as it had destroyed their culture and the environment. The authors were not able to do fieldwork, due to the great distance of the dam. In this sense, the research does not cover all the social–environmental issues, as an ethnographic approach is necessary.

The authors intend to bring attention to harms caused to indigenous people and the local communities, expecting to create an alert of what this kind of project can do to vulnerable peoples' life, especially now with the pandemic scenario, which makes indigenous and traditional communities more vulnerable to diseases due to the loss of their territories.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the level of income inequality among fisher households in the four segments of the Volta Basin in Ghana and the determinants of small-scale fisher household welfare.

The paper investigates income inequality and the determinants of household consumption expenditure of fishers in the Volta Basin of Ghana using the Lorenz curve, Gini coefficient decomposition and the multiple linear regression technique.

The findings confirm the empirical evidence that households in the general downstream communities and their compatriots in the upstream communities were statistically different in terms of household characteristics and physical and social capital. Income inequality was highest among households in upstream communities but least amongst downstream communities. Livelihoods of the fishery households largely and strictly favored male households. Also, educational status was associated with higher levels of income which enormously help reduce food insecurity.

The reliance on dummy variables might lead to omissions of revealed understated differences between households.

The study recommends that effort should be made to help increase fish production in the upstream communities. Furthermore, alternative sources of income should be introduced to households in the upstream so they do not become more disadvantaged by the construction of the dam.

The uniqueness of the paper is that it tries to estimate the impact of the construction of the dam on the Volta Basin by taking into consideration the effect of the construction of the dam on the upstream and downstream separately.