GHC 50b century bond must be accompanied by 40-year development plan - Economist

Financial analyst and economist, Daniel Anim-Prempeh, believes the proposed GH¢50 billion Century Bond is a good initiative by government, but believes it must be linked with the proposed 40-year development plan created by the previous administration led by Dr. Nii Moi Thompson.

Anim-Prempeh believes it will be suicidal to go for a bond that lasts a century without a blueprint in place and believes since there is already a 40-year development plan that carefully outlines development priorities, it would be best to use it as the blueprint for accessing the century bond.

The financial analysts said it would be fatal for the country to ignore the 40-year develop plan and access the century bond without the blueprint. This, in his view, is necessary because the 40-year development plan in wide in scope and depth.

For instance, the plan designs how the railway infrastructure can be linked nationally, the decongestion of the central business area of the capital, and the development of Prampram which can house about 2 million people to ease the congestion in the city; to a masterplan for the free SHS policy, the expansion of the country’s airports to the industries that need to be established to give the country a competitive edge in the sub-region and beyond.

The fear Daniel Anim-Prempeh harbours is the likelihood that without such a blueprint, politicians might be tempted to dip their hands into the bond, and misapply or abuse the funds and we’d have nothing to show for, and this is very possible, given our history.

He believes the 40-year plan should be subjected to the consent of all Ghanaians so that if it is agreed to work with, then we should adopt it as the national blueprint for development that the nation adheres to.

Therefore, Anim-Prempeh is calling for a revisit of the 40-year Development Plan and the constitution of a bipartisan team made up of academia, planners, economists etc to either develop an alternative plan if the 40-year plan is not adopted, or fine-tune the existing one where necessary.

He agreed that accessing the century bond will help address the infrastructure gap currently plaguing the economy, and therefore a good option that can be pursued. However, he also expressed a few issues some of government’s policies which he admits are good on paper but implementation could be hampered without clear-cut direction.

For instance, the 1D1F industrialization programme has no clear policy direction, as well as the 1 dam 1 village programme. He believes it is not only about erecting industries in each of the 216 districts of the country, but equally, we need to invest where there is a competitive advantage, else if care is not taken, we would be producing the same items produced in other sub-regional economies and then we’d have a hard time marketing such products and we would end up being uncompetitive.

According to the financial analyst, all bonds contracted over the years has not witnessed any visible or tangible benefit to the nation and thus is calling for a broader consultation on accessing the century bond.