NDPC needs intellectual fire power – Dr Lloyd Amoah

Policy Analyst at Ashesi University, Dr. Lloyd Amoah has stressed the need to resource the National Development Planning Commission with the required “brain power” it desired.

Dr. Amoah’s call comes on the heels of a suggestion by Policy Think Tank, IMANI Ghana, which is pushing for the NDPC to be stripped of its planning responsibilities and reduced to an advisory body.

The commission’s role has recently come under some intense scrutiny following Tuesday’s presidential debate where the various candidates articulated their positions on how to make the commission more effective.

Founding President of IMANI, Franklyn Cudjoe told JOY NEWS that the emphasis on the NDPC as a vehicle for a binding national development plan was unfortunate.

Speaking on the Super Morning Show on Joy FM Thursday, Dr. Lloyd Amoah supported New Patriotic Party flagbearer’s idea of making his Vice president chair the Commission, if the party is elected into government in the coming December elections.

“The NDPC needs to be far more resourced and provided with greater presidential clout; and so for me, Nana Addo’s position that he will put the Vice president as the key government personality on that Commission to ensure that it has presidential bite, is timely and important.

“…I think that other institutions such as the NDPC which are mandated by our supreme law to perform that role, ought to be backed up with as I said, with resources, with brain power; young people from the universities, policy analysts, intellectuals who have proved their worth in their fields ought to be sent in there so that the NDPC provides us with the intellectual fire power on a consistent level,” Dr. Amoah stated.

Similarly, Development Policy Advisor at the Office of the President, Dr. Sulley Gariba has described IMANI’s position as “thoughtfully analysed “and “dead on”.

Dr. Gariba noted that even though the Commission had being doing "a bit" of think tank, it has not been doing so explicitly.

Dr. Gariba however said the nation still needs the Commission to focus on developing the development planning framework to ensure the long term planning of the country, while the Finance Ministry puts resources to it.