Law-backed development plan: A must!

A week  ago, the maiden Northern Ghana Development Conference in Tamale was held, where the traditional ruler and former Managing Director of Stanbic Bank Ghana, Naa Alhassan Andani, called for a legally binding national development plan to guide the country’s growth agenda.

Speaking at the programme, Naa Alhassan Andani stated that the country needed a legally binding national development plan to break the cycle of abandoned projects to ensure sustainable development.

He argued that the lack of an accepted national blueprint had resulted in successive governments abandoning projects to pursue new and partisan priorities, leaving the country “basically directionless”; with many development projects uncompleted due to the absence of a consistent plan that all political parties could align with.

Development plans in Ghana have been as chequered as our political history, vacillating from military rule to democratic governance, until currently the Fourth Republic, where there is stability.

Ghana’s development plans date before its independence, with the first being  the Governor Sir Gordon Guggisberg’s plan, “described as the most ambitious ever proposed in West Africa” between 1919 and 1927 (CRC Report, December 2011)

The second was also a 10-Year Development Plan (1951-1961) launched by the colonial government and later consolidated as a five-year development plan by Dr Kwame Nkrumah (1951-1956). [ref: Vision 2057, the Long-Term National Development Plan (2018-2057) and CRC Report, December 2011]

The third was the seven-year development plan for National Reconstruction and Development (1963/64-1969/70), with the focus on economic diversification.

Other short-term development plans and efforts followed, with the various governments, and military regimes of the Progress Party (Second Republic) and the People’s National Convention (Third Republic, 1966 and 1981); with other varied plans by military juntas, including, ‘Operation-Feed-Yourself’, geared towards food security (Genera Ignatius Kutu Acheampong, 1972 to 2978); and the several efforts at economic recovery of the 1980s under the Provisional National Defence Council’s (PNDC) Economic Recovery Programme (ERP I and II)  and the Structural Adjustment phases (1987-1989).

The Fourth Republic came with the establishment of the  National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) by Articles 86 and 87 of the 1992 Constitution, with all its other laws and regulations.

For instance the  National Development Planning Commission Act, 1994 (Act 479), National Development Planning (System) Act, 1994 (Act 480) and the National Development Planning Systems Regulations, 2016 (L.I. 2232), to cite a few.

With the new legal dispensation came other development plans, such as Vision 2020, which spanned 25 years (1996 to 2020) with a medium-term plan (1996-2000) outlining specific objectives and strategies.

Attaining the Heavily Indebted Poor Country status in 2002, a strategy of poverty reduction was the thrust of economic plans, with the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS I, 2003-2005); followed by the Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS II: 2006-2009). Subsequently, Vision 2020 was aborted for a diverse medley of programmes and plans at economic reform and development. The NDPC currently has Vision 2057, the Long-Term National Development Plan (2018-2057).

First, it is interesting that the Constitutional Review Commission Report, from a Political to a Developmental Constitution, (December 2021) states a general concensus on the issue of a legally binding long-term development plan.

Although not part of the about 44 issues of concern about the 1992 Constitution teased out to engage Ghanaians on, sector-wide national consultations brought out the fact that  “there was universal agreement on the need for a long term, strategic and relatively binding national development plan.”

Thus,  Naa Alhassan Andani’s call is a re-echo of the collective desires of Ghanaians expressed over time..

Second, the imperative for a long-term legally binding development plan will strengthen governance and public resource expenditures.

Third, a long-term legally binding development plan will stem all the wastage in governance.

The Daily Graphic is unequivocal that a long-term legally binding development plan will end the extreme partisanship of governance and elections into public office.

Ghanaians are certainly aghast by the abandonment of development projects in communities, just because it was started by a previous opposition government, in spite of the fact that they could have been beneficial to the communities.

A long-term legally binding development plan will clearly define development aspirations of all, purging Ghanaians of blind affiliations to political parties and their skewed reward systems that are merely based on patronage, and not merit or need.

The Daily Graphic commends Naa Alhassan Andani for his thought, and proposes it to the government for action, and to Ghanaians for the concerted activism in its realisation.

Principally, we hope that the Kwasi H. Prempeh-led Constitution Review Committee and the NDPC have taken note.