Co-founder of the Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), Prof. Baffour Agyemang-Duah, has advocated for a more decentralized approach to Ghana’s development strategy.
His remarks follow the unveiling of a new 40-year development plan by the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC).
Speaking on JoyNews’ PM Express, he noted that while Ghana has made strides in administrative decentralization, it has fallen short in fiscal and political decentralization, posing a significant challenge to the country’s development.
Prof. Agyemang-Duah emphasized the importance of placing people at the forefront of Ghana’s development process, especially in a democratic nation like Ghana.
“But then at the same time, you hear something that sounds like a command economy plan, a centralised economy, because everything seems to be built around the central government. There’s a contradiction there.”
“We should be looking at how we decentralize our development processes. So while I appreciate the fact that we should have a development planning for the nation, we should also be seriously considering having a decentralized political system that will enable development in the country to be driven more at the community or the district level.”
Prof. Agyemang-Duah conceded that a comprehensive framework was needed at the national level to guarantee that succeeding administrations would know where the nation is headed for the next thirty years or more.
However, “that is different from getting the districts to identify their needs, their priorities, and working at that level with the support from central government for it to be driven at the district level. I’m saying this in the context of decentralisation, which the constitution provides, which no government has seriously pursued,” he told the host Evans Mensah.
Meanwhile, Dr. Kodjo Esseim Mensah–Abrampa, the Director-General of the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), emphasized that the development plan actualizes the nation’s vision.
Speaking on JoyNews’ PM Express, he elaborated that after extensive consultations with diverse stakeholders, the NDPC delineated key objectives, visions, aspirations, and pathways necessary for sustained developmental progress over the next four decades.