We need national dev plan now!

President John Dramani Mahama last Monday swore in a 34-member National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) and noted that the lack of long-term development planning was a concern for the people of Ghana.

Article 86 of the Constitution establishes the NDPC and clearly spells out its mandate.

The core mandate of the NDPC is to advise the President on national development planning policy and strategy.

The Daily Graphic believes that the drafters of our Constitution, having considered the development needs and aspirations of our country, thought it wise that such a body, made up of eminent persons with deep knowledge of development planning, would be better placed to provide the needed expertise to direct the development agenda of the nation.

However, over the years, the commission, instead of spearheading the development agenda and producing the blueprint that must serve as a guide for our national quest, has been reduced to playing just a normative role.

This is in view of the fact that political parties attain power on the strength of their manifestos and so when they assume the reins of power, their priority has always been to fulfil their campaign promises in order to remain relevant and secure another term in office.

Without doubt, this ad hoc approach to national development planning and execution will not bring the fullest benefit to our national aspiration for growth and development.

That is why in the past there were instances when projects started by one regime were discontinued by another or left to rot.

In other instances, the new government that takes over only replicates the same concept under a different name, using our scarce national resources, when the ones left by the previous administration could simply have been continued.

It was against this background that the Constitutional Review Commission (CRC), in its report, recommended the permanence of the NDPC and the development programme for the country, such that irrespective of the party in power, the goals and visions of the country will remain unchanged.

However, the government issued a White Paper in which it disagreed with the move to tie the hands of successive governments to a national development plan.

But last Monday, President Mahama, who was the Vice-President when the White Paper was issued, announced that he had requested a review of the government’s White Paper on the NDPC.

Also, he has decoupled Economic Planning from the Ministry of Finance, with the aim of ensuring that the country’s economic development planning was situated in the right sector.

The President also admitted that there were some constitutional issues and instructional challenges that undermined the work of the NDPC and pledged to work with the new governing team to resolve them.

The world has come a long way from the days of exclusivist political ideologies based on extremism and where socialism was on one end of the spectrum while capitalism also stood at the other, without any compromises.

Gradually, the new world has wormed itself into the welfare system where social interventions have become key components of government programmes and policies, regardless of their leftist or rightist orientations.

The development of our country goes beyond sectarian or political interests and, for that matter, political ideologies must not be allowed to hold our national dreams to ransom.