Former Director-General and Rector of GIMPA, Professor Stephen Adei, says Ghana’s politicians are not interested in anything long-term.
His statement was premised on the seeming abandonment of Ghana’s 40-year development plan created by the National Development Planning Commission.
According to him, the plan which was previously created by the erstwhile Kwesi Botchwey-led NDPC was not concluded before he resigned.
“When we took over,” he said, “we looked at it and it was such a voluminous book, 465 pages or so. I said ‘look, no matter what is in it, the politicians won’t read it, neither the civil servants’. So we did not throw it away.
“We extracted the essence of it and did a very short directive one we call Ghana@100. But Ghana@100 was the same as the 40-year plan because their 40-year plan was ending at 2057 when Ghana would be 100 years. So we summarized it into that. So there’s a document called Ghana@100 and published it,” he said.
But just like the previous plan, the Ghana@100 document received no attention from the politicians.
“But sad to say the problem is not NDPC, the problem is that our politicians are not interested in anything long-term. We didn’t even have opportunity to present it to the president and they dissolved the NDPC and brought in another set. So the problem is not that we don’t have the capacity and the plans but those who should own it will not.
“So they’re not interested in strengthening the national development planning commission to do a bipartisan direction for this country which at least will guide everybody and that is one of the banes. And eventually believe it or not I asked to be relieved of being the chairman of NDPC because I can’t waste my limited time doing things which I know will be fruitless,” he said.
