Former Chairman of the Public Interest Accountability Committee (PIAC), Dr Steve Manteaw, has disclosed that political parties within the country are not interested in a long term development plan.
According to him, the forty years development plan initially proposed under the late President Mills regime received rejection.
Mr Manteaw however noted that, per the constitutional review commission’s report, majority of Ghanaians “opted for long term development planning”.
He made this revelations during a public engagement organised by PIAC in the Oti Region on its 2020 annual report.
“Under the late President Mills, this country undertook an exercise to collect views on Ghanaians on how we should be reviewing our national constitution. Among the questions that were asked was the issue of long term development plan; whether or not Ghana should be adopting such a framework for managing the country’s economy.
“For me, it makes sense because then it keeps the core country on a consistent development path. The current situation, where we see policy reversals after a change of government doesn’t take us very far. However, you find that, the political class in this country haven’t embraced this idea. Initially, the NDC and the NPP rejected the commission’s report on the long term development plan”.
To salvage the situation, the former PIAC chairman maintained it had to take some key stakeholders to intervene. Additionally, Mr Manteaw revealed that an opposing NPP government resorted to the implantation of a seven year plan.
Implementing the forty year development plan
As such, he exposed the intent of successive government in being self-seeking in the implementation of the development plan.
“Somehow following engagement with organised groups, CSOs and the rest, then President Mahama had a change of position. We initiated the process of developing a forty year development plan. This was almost finalized at the time the NPP took over power. But the NPP government has decided to set it aside and replace it with the seven years development plan. So, you find that, by and large, the only group of people in Ghana that are not very comfortable with long term development plan are the political class.
“The reason for me is that, these people like discretion, they abuse that discretion to shore up their political fortunes, especially in election years. You find election coming, something is not planned for [and] it’s not situated within government plans. Yet, because they’re suffering some decline in electoral fortunes, they move resources to go and shore up their fortunes over there and these needs to overrun in government expenditure. This is what the politicians want.”
Mr Manteaw further urged the public to be resolute in seeking out the interest of the country. To achieve this, he explained that Ghanaians must hold government accountable.
“Until such times when citizens rise up and demand that enough of the one step forward, two steps backward, we want to be consistent in terms of our development trajectory, long term development planning in this country will not happen”.
