Ghana needs national development policy & not party manifestos

On Tuesday, this week, we looked at the campaign promises of the political parties, especially the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and New Patriotic Party (NPP).

The paper also expressed concern over the way Imani Ghana was being attacked by these two political parties for the comments the policy think tank had made, regarding some of their promises.

Imani had argued that some of the promises made by the NPP flagbearer, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo were not quantifiable.

In the case of the NDC, the think tank said it would need $24 billion to execute 75% of the promises the party has made. Out of the figure, $22 billion would have to be borrowed.

We are not experts in Economics, but looking at the nation's revenue stream, one would be wondering how NDC is going to raise these huge sums of money to prosecute this agenda, though we concede that some of the projects are already on-going.

To us, therefore, Imani was justified in raising questions about the sources of funding for the campaign promises, but instead of listening to them, the think tank has rather become easy prey that must be caught and devoured.

Interestingly, it is not only Imani that is expressing concern over some of these issues. The general Superintendent of Methodist Church, Ghana, Rev Titus Awotwi Pratt was also on television rejecting the writing of manifestos by the political parties, saying it would not help the course of development of this country of ours.

To him, the country should rather have a national policy, which is backed by law, for any party that comes to power to pursue. He grounded his argument in the fact that the political parties tend to throw away the development projects that have been initiated by their predecessors in pursuit of their own.

This, to him, retards the development of the country, hence his call for a national development policy framework.

The Chronicle shares the views of Rev. Awotwi, because there are so many cases to prove what he is saying.

Ever since the 1992 constitution came into existence, successive governments have relegated to the background, some of the major development projects initiated by the previous governments. In recent memory, we can talk about the affordable housing projects initiated by the Kufuor government.

Though the tax payers' money was used to start this project, it was abandoned for almost six years. It is now that the Mahama government is completing the projects.

One can also talk about the gang of four roads in Accra. The Atta Mills government claimed no source of funding was provided for the execution of the projects.

It took some time before these projects were completed. In all these cases, the reason behind it is simple – the succeeding government does not want to expend resources on projects for the departed government to claim credit for them.

If this is the true situation on the ground, how can Ghanaians be assured that the Eastern Region University and the Eastern Corridor roads among others would vigorous be pursued if NDC loses power?

Will the NPP secure the funding to complete them for Fifi Kwetey and his set the records straight team to organize a news conference to claim credit for the projects?

Since every government would want the voting public to know what they have done well as a government, they would abandon the previous projects to pursue their own and take full credit. This is a bad development, but unfortunately it is what we are being confronted with.

This is the reason why we support Rev. Awotwi's position that party manifestoes are not necessary.

What the country rather needs is the national development policy that he espoused. When these national development policies are documented with the appropriate legislation to back it, the onus would be on whichever political party that is in power to choose the path that would lead to the actualization of the vision put together in the form of a document.

Mathematics has so many methods, but all of them lead to the same answer. Since the policy framework is already there, it is the duty of the political party that is in power to use its own methods to source for funds and implement them, but the final result must be the one laid down in the documented national vision.

The Chronicle is aware that the National Development planning Commission (NDPC) has started a forty year development plan for the country, which is a good idea. The unfortunate part though, is that it is not backed by law that would tie the hands of the party in power to follow the development plan.

In accepting Rev Awotwi's suggestion, we are also mindful of the fact that the political parties have diverse traditional backgrounds.

Whilst NDC claims to be social democrats, NPP also believes in capitalism. The middle ground would, therefore, be a hybrid sort of national vision that would encapsulate visions and dreams of these two dominant parties.

Though NPP is a capitalist oriented party, it still came out with pro-poor policies like school feeding and the National Health Insurance Scheme. Ghana needs to think outside the box, else the world would leave us behind when it comes to development.