The director of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), Professor Stephen Adei, has indicated that Ghana lacked the requisite leadership, political commitment, and passion to properly develop a national agenda and vision for development.
According to him, although Ghana had the elements for a powerful national vision, past and recent visions like the Vision 2020 of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to turn Ghana into a middle-income country by the year 2020, and that of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to also turn Ghana into a middle-income country by 2015 have all remained intellectual and political exercises rather than national visions.
He said even though political leaders have realized the need for a vision to drive national development, the passion and commitment to implement them have greatly varied with very limited commitment and passion by the NDC to a slightly improved one by the NPP.
In his words, "We have political aspirations but not a clear development vision A vision without an agenda or strategy is a mere dream; and a dream unrealized may lead to despair at best and rebellion at worst. Without vision, so-called leaders are mere managers of the status quo."
Prof. Adei was speaking at a forum organized by Media in Partnership for Development on the topic "The Search for a Cohesive National Agenda" last Friday in Accra.
He noted that the NDC's Vision 2020 did not succeed because it was externally driven, starting with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), while the NPP's middle-income vision has not trickled down with the implementation having been hijacked by the International Monetary Fund (IMF)-World Bank strict-jacked of Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy.
"We talk about a middle-income country in terms of $1,000 per capita but not the characteristics of a middle-income in terms of universal basic education, working utilities and availability of electricity, Information Communication Technology (ICT) ballets one and efficient road, rail and air transport networks," he lamented.
He further stressed, "We lack an articulated agenda or strategic plan to achieve that," adding in that regard, the NPP government had made some progress with its GPRS I & II though he was of the opinion that the concept of Poverty Alleviation was a bad one to drive national effort.
This, he averred, came from the World Bank, and suggesting a more positive phrase name like "Wealth Creation".
"I think they are not bold enough and even if all that is set out to be done and accomplished, the vision will not be realized."
In addition, he stated that for income targets to be realized, it was important that there was an agenda to accelerate growth to between 8% and 10% per annum, which was woefully lacking in the case of Ghana. Further, he called for a strategic agenda that would lead to realization of a vision.
He intimated, "Ghana needs a growth agenda now so that the stabilization phase will lead to positive improvements."
He reiterated that this must be informed by analysis such as a robust identification of key bottlenecks to national development with a plan to remedy them within the shortest possible time. He said Ghana needs an "aggressive prosecution of home-grown agenda, which demands an immediate setting up of a real think-tank or transforming the NDPC or an alternative think-tank into one and not think the World Bank and IMF are enough for our national development."
The GIMPA Director mentioned that the nation needs a clear vision and agenda for national development to spur the nation on to concentrate, think and build an effort that is incontrovertible but that would also sharpen the vision and make it a driving force for development.
He however expressed optimism that Ghana's vision of becoming a middle-income country in ten years was attainable, and therefore called for the need for either the Vision 2020 or 2015 to be given content beyond income per head and backed with strategic growth agenda.
He called on the media to focus on development issues that would provide the platform for healthy debates, discussions and help articulate a national vision as well as the business community to contribute their quota towards national growth.
He expressed regret at the silence on the part of the nation's academia to current trends in the country and appealed to them and the media to focus on development issues and work intellectually on a clear vision and agenda for national development.
"Our achievements in the recent past in the midst of the sea of woes around our region are remarkable. Stabilization phase has been successful and this is the time to move aggressively towards accelerated growth. To that end, a clear vision and strategic agenda are indispensable," he concluded.
