The ubiquitous Minister of Finance, Mr. Yaw Osafo Maafo has declared the Vision 2020 Programme, which was launched by the National Democratic Party government in 1995 to turn the country into a middle-income earning a dead document.
Maafo made the declaration on Kwaku-One-on-One, a popular GTV talk show programme last Sunday. Asked by the host Kwaku Sakyi Addo to tell Ghanaians what his government intended to do with the programme, Maafo replied; "as far as I am concerned the Vision 2020 programme is dead." The Finance Minister said a Vision 2010 programme, which aims at increasing food production and processing and job creation, would replace the Vision 2020 programme. It was not clear whether Maafo's declaration was the official government policy, but as Finance Minister, he should be taken serious.
He was particular about plans by the government to increase cocoa and timber processing to appreciable levels to earn the country more revenue.
The cancellation of another development plan once more brings to the fore the burning issue of fashioning an acceptable development programmes for the country, no matter which government is in power.
Ghana has, since independence been at pains trying to find a suitable development model. Different governments have experimented with various development concepts or ideologies and have often left the economy midstream when a change of government occurs.
As stated earlier, the programme was launched in 1995 as a blue print for the economic development of the country. To show it meant business the NDC government introduced a Medium Term Development Plan (MTDP) that was to achieve some objectives between 1997-2000 and set the stage for the master plan to take off.
Among other aims, the MTDP was to redefine the role of government as a facilitator and provider of an enabling environment for sustainable development; promote the development of the private sector to become the engine of economic growth; transform the structures of the economy and society in order to make them more development oriented; build the economy to be resilient to domestic and external shocks; pursuing a decentralization and participatory approach to development planning, participation and implementation etc.
These objectives were supposed to be achieved by the end of 2000. But by the end of last year, it had become clear that the above objectives, except some form of decentralization remained mere dreams. The inability of the government to achieve the objectives meant that the Vision 2020 master plan was in danger.
For instance critics of the past government proved beyond all doubt that by January 6, 2001 when it left office, the government remained the dominant player in the economy, borrowing from the banks and by that influencing interest rates.
The government's macroeconomics policy within the period continued to be adversely affected by persistent government budget deficits, arising largely from government's inability to mobilise sufficient revenue to meet its growing expenditure.
Besides, the fall of cocoa and gold prices on the international market in 1999 shook the foundation of the economy and compelled government to deplete the country's foreign reserves to balance the books. This raised questions as to whether the government would be able to see through the MTDP programme by end of 2000.
To add to that, the government had since 1995 failed to get a consensus on the document with the then opposition NPP claiming the programme was tailored to suit the ruling NDC's long term plan to hold sway over the country.
It comes as no surprise to hear the Minister of Finance sound the death knell of the programme which it was thought, held the key to Ghana's future and was expected to improve the living standards of many Ghanaians.
So back to square one, to put it mildly. The issue of abandoning development projects of previous government is becoming a bane to the country's development.
When the CPP government was overthrown in 1966, its seven- year development programme, which hoped to make Ghana an industrialized country, was annulled by the military junta, without any tangible economic reason, safe for ideological arguments.
A similar fate befell the five year-year development plan of the Busia government. The Acheampong government, which overthrew the Busia administration, did not incorporate aspects of the Dr. Busia's master plan of rural development into their plan. Equally painful is the failure of successive governments to implement the 1969 Population Policy, which recommended the decentralization of some ministries to other regional capitals in order to decongest Accra. Today, the difficulties confronting the Accra Metropolitan Assembly in planning the city makes the 1969 Population Policy more relevant.
Acheampong's own development agenda came to an abrupt end in1978 when he was overthrown in a palace coup that set the stage for the 1979 coup. The least said about June 4, 1979 coup the better. Apart from traumatizing ordinary Ghanaians, the four-month old Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) government plunged the country into a spiral of trial and error economic planning for which the country is paying the price.
The People's National Party (PNP) government under the late Dr. Hilla Limann, which took over, the mess created by the AFRC had a hectic time resuscitating the economy.
Narrating his story years after he was overthrown, Dr. Limann said when his government came to office; the coffers were empty because western donors had cut off all lines of credit. And just when he struggled to restore the credit lines and launched the government's three-year development plan; the same Jerry Rawlings staged another coup.
Since 1981, Jerry Rawlings' Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) and later National Democratic Congress (NDC) tried all sorts of economic concepts. First, they tried socialism, flirted with Fidel Castro of Cuba and Muamar Qaddafi of Libya. When the going got tough, they turned to the west, and landed in the hands of the IMF and World Bank.
One argument that flows from Ghana's development history is that military intervention in politics did more harm than good in that it destroyed the very foundations of the country's economic development.
