President Mahama wants concise longterm development plan

Accra, Aug 4, GNA - President John Dramani Mahama on Tuesday tasked the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), to develop a concise long-term development plan that would transcend political, ethnic and geographical aspirations.

This, he suggested could be done through the transformation of the economy to make it resilient in the coming years.

"The development plan also needs to empower society and communities and strengthen the institutions to ensure that peace and Justice pave way for accelerated development," he added.

President Mahama said this when he launched the preparation of the long-term National Development Plan for Ghana in Accra.

The launch marked the beginning of collation of views and contributions from stakeholders to subsequently come out with a comprehensive development plan for the next 40 years.

It was also attended by: Former Presidents Jerry John Rawlings and John Agyekum Kufuor, Mr Edward Doe-Adjaho, Speaker of Parliament and Mrs Georgina Theodora Wood, Chief Justice among other dignitaries.

Similar comprehensive development plans had been implemented in countries such as; Korea, Taiwan, Hongkong, China, Singapore, Malaysia Mauritius, Botswana and the Seychelles Island among many others.

President Mahama said in developing the plan, the developers need to learn from the mistakes that stifled the previous development plans in order to serve as a springboard for initiating a better and workable one for the future.

He said consensus is a necessity in developing such a plan and lauded the members for meeting him and the two former presidents and handlers of the Commission adding: "You need to work hard to ensure that at the end of it, there will be a collective ownership."

He entreated them to include a number of youth development programmes and issues bordering on peace and Justice to give the masses the opportunity to contribute their quota to nation building.

President Mahama expressed dissatisfaction at the way prominent and useful development projects were abandoned after administrations that initiated them had left office and advised them to ensure that such mistakes are no longer repeated after the development of the 40-year development plan.

"I want the roadmap to the new development plan to transcend the visions and aspirations of all political parties and Ghanaians in general."

Dr Nii Moi Thompson, Director General of the NDPC said the new development plan which would span the next 40 years would seek to improve on infrastructure, science and technology that would propel both physical and knowledge-based development.

He explained that the longterm development plan is necessary because of the oil exploitation of oil and other minerals in the country and also to serve as the working document for all political administrations that would be captured in the next 40 years.

The Director General said the NDPC would among other things study and make strategic analyses of macro-economic and structural reforms and make proposals for the development of multi-year rolling plans relative to resource potential and comparative advantage of various districts of the country.

In their determination to ensure a comprehensive development plan, the NDPC over the weeks held consultative discussions with former President Rawlings and Mr Kufuor and President Mahama and Speaker of Parliament to tap their experiences and expertise in development.

They also engaged the Council of state, various political parties and would be engaging faith based organisations among other stakeholders in the build up to the final collation.

GNA