40-year development plan needs broad consultation

A cross–section of Ghanaians including political parties and students are urging the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) to partner the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) as it rolls out a national discourse to solicit for views on the newly-launched 40-year national development plan.

Chiefly among the suggestions was the inculcation of a legal framework to make the document, which is yet to be fine-tuned to be binding on successive governments to move Ghana into the league of developed nations by 2057.

In principle though, each participatory group appeared to have bought into the plan but the NDPC could be burdened with trying to satisfy the needs of a large number of them especially the students who wished to see systematic and deliberate programmes to get at least 80 per cent of Ghanaians literate by the end of the 2057.

The two-day discourse in Kumasi marked the beginning of a nation-wide broad-based exchange of ideas to craft an acceptable document to be owned by all shades of Ghanaians, especially the youth.

Ms Eva Lokko of the Progressive Peoples Party for instance, suggested that within the long-term plan, it should be possible for the plan to have short and medium term plans which will deal with specifics as well as make it dynamic and subject to review from time to time.

The Director General of the NDPC, Dr Nii Moi Thompson, allayed the fears of participants when he said the documents captured short to medium term plans and was subject for review every 10 years by parliament.

However, key to achieving the set goals, according to Dr Thompson was addressing some six key factors including attitudinal change, human capital, information, science and technology.

Citing a number of examples from other parts of the world including Singapore and Malaysia, Dr Thompson said things could worsen for the country especially by 2040 when the population is estimated to hit 46 million.

He noted that the current power crisis and other economic challenges were as a result of lack of planning and anticipation by successive governments.

The document codenamed: ‘Black Star Rising’ kicks off implementation in 2018 to 2057.

Article 87 (2) of the 1992 Constitution mandates the NDPC to, among other things, make proposals for the development of multi-year rolling plans taking into consideration the resource potential and comparative advantage of the different districts of Ghana.