Lack of policy consensus in Ghana’s democratic journey; a setback in building a buoyant and resilient nation

In 1995, the NDC administration launched the vision 2020 document that was put together by the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) as the blue print for Ghana’s socio-economic development. This document was presented to parliament by the then president, H.E Jerry John Rawlings.

The summary of the vision 2020 is to efficiently use the nation’s resources to achieve economic growth and development placing much emphasis on science and technology.

The proponents of the vision 2020 were of the view that Ghana will be like Singapore when we get to 2020.

Ghanaians had high hopes with this policy vision, with the mindset that they will feel proud as Ghanaians again.

We are in 2020 and is Ghana like Singapore?

The GDP of Singapore is $362.818 billion, it is the third least corrupt nation in the world and has the third highest GDP in world rankings.

Ghana on the other hand is projected to have a GDP trend around $60 billion in 2020 and shamefully ranked the 78th out of 180 nations on the global corruption perception index.

Like all other national policies such as the 7year development plan of Dr.Kwame Nkrumah, Acheampong etc were truncated after a change in government, the vision 2020 suffered same faith.

When the NPP won the elections, in September 2001, the then finance minister Hon. Yaw Osarfo Maafo said the vision 2020 is a dead program as far as he is concerned and came out with a vision 2020 program aimed at concentrating on food production and processing as well as job creation.
At the end of 2010 there was no significant change in the agricultural production chain, we are also cursed with increasing unemployed graduate phenomenon.

The country under John Mahama witnessed some glimpse of hope when he extended a hand to all political parties to be part of the Senchi consensus, this was a platform meant to come out with a home grown solution to our national problems. Again the divisive partisan approach had the better side of us. The NPP refused to be part of the process.

As citizens, let is ask ourselves whether the hard line politics has done our nation any serious good.

The 7 year development of Nkrumah was truncated leading to companies and projects rotten away, the Kutu Acheampong operation feed yourself was put on ice, the vision 2010, and vision 2020 did not achieve their intended purpose.

We as citizens of this great nation called Ghana should do some retrospection about the kind of politics we do in this country. Let us learn to build consensus across the divides.

It is only then that we can all have a strong leap in our nation’s development agenda and build strong institutions that work without any political interference.

God bless my country Ghana and make her great and strong !

Source: Kafui Agbleze