‘Decoupling economic planning from finance great idea’

Read Comments Comments (5)

• Asempa 10 years ago

  Are we waking up or what? Let's what's going to happen.

  Are we waking up or what? Let's what's going to happen.

  reply
• Odurose 10 years ago

  This is not a new idea and I bet it will not work. Historically National Planning Commission used to be a separate entity from the Ministry of Finance but the two were brought together for the simple reason that the Ministry ...
  read full comment

  This is not a new idea and I bet it will not work. Historically National Planning Commission used to be a separate entity from the Ministry of Finance but the two were brought together for the simple reason that the Ministry of Finance should be linked to the planning process for ease of financial oversight. So now does it mean that the Ministry no longer need to oversee the planning process to make it more economically and poliyically realistic?
  
  On a more serious note, isn't the whole idea of planning 'passee' now and harks back to statist and dirigiste control of the economy beloved of the socialist ideological claptrap? Let the Ministry of Finance control the economy by its budgets. The Ministry can do its medium and long term projections and we do not need a whole bureaucracy as the NDPC to do national planning which for all the fanfare about them are not implementable. In any case, is medium and long term planning possible in a small economy which is subject to the strong headwinds of globalisation and the vagaries of the weather? Look at what the recent changes in the oil price on the world market is doing to government budgets all over the world. What can long term planning do to stem this? It is the government's budgets with its flexibility that should be the vehicle for planning and not another institution and bureaucracy.

  reply
• Sankofa 10 years ago

  Failing to plan is planning to fail.
  
  All the industrially advanced countries, whether capitalist, socialist, communist or mixed economy do plan ahead.
  
  It is precisely because one does not know what the future will entai ...
  read full comment

  Failing to plan is planning to fail.
  
  All the industrially advanced countries, whether capitalist, socialist, communist or mixed economy do plan ahead.
  
  It is precisely because one does not know what the future will entail that one has to plan ahead.
  
  Thinking of the future enables one to plan countermeasures against contingencies.
  
  Ghana's problems are in part due to our inability to plan ahead. We could not have foreseen the sharp fall in oil and other commodity prices, but we could easily have anticipated the problems with electricity and water supply. These have been perennial problems which successive administrations have failed to grapple.

  reply
• daigreenon fui thackley 10 years ago

  Laudable and must include an aggressive policy and implementation of spatial land use and planning, effective and orderly outlaying of our villages, towns and cities by incorporating the requisite and appropriate facilities, ...
  read full comment

  Laudable and must include an aggressive policy and implementation of spatial land use and planning, effective and orderly outlaying of our villages, towns and cities by incorporating the requisite and appropriate facilities, structures and institutions necessary for the effective running and convenient habitation of the people. and in doing so all the various utility and service institutions must be made to play key role in fashioning out and alignment of such master plan for each community to provide the kind of global comfort its inhatants deserve to enjoy so the nation as a whole can derive maximum benefit....

  reply
• Yaw 10 years ago

  Wrong. Physical planning must stay with Local Govt.

  Wrong. Physical planning must stay with Local Govt.

  reply