Economist advocates blueprint on economy

AN economic consultant, Mr Kwame Pianim, has advocated a blueprint of good practices that would guide how the country’s economy and physical environment are to be managed.
“Such a national vision can serve as a broad guide within which incoming administrations will locate their policies and programmes in pursuit of the agreed vision,” he added.
Mr Pianim, who was speaking at the maiden lecture to mark the 20th anniversary celebration of the establishment of the Institute for Economic Affairs (IEA) in Accra yesterday, said fortunately, the country had witnessed the emergence of two main political parties whose policy differences with regard to private sector-led development and state-centred development were relatively marginal.
The lecture was on the theme, “Institutionalising Economic Strategy and Policy Formulation Processes Towards Transformational Economic Development”.
Mr Pianim cited some examples from the manifestos of the two political parties in which they both focused on agriculture and agro-processing and use of education as a tool for empowering the poor and transforming the living standards of Ghanaians.
He said the voting pattern over the last 16 years was a pointer to the fact that the two major parties would be in and out of government and therefore working together was only natural and for the benefit of all.
According to Mr Pianim, for these proposals to be effectively implemented, there was the need for the transformation of mindset, both among the political elite and the citizenry at large, if Ghana wanted to succeed.
He added that the self-serving populists rhetoric among politicians and entitlement mentality among the citizenry must also cease.
“We need to have courage to move away from these comfort zones that chain us to a past of under-performance and low aspirations and embrace new ideas that promote change,” Mr Pianim added.
He again called for the reconstitution of the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) as an instrument for fashioning a medium to long-term national development plan.
This, the economic consultant said, should start with the development of a tradition for the selection of the members on a bi-partisan basis with consultation among stakeholders in civil society, academia and the business community.
“The secretariat should be made up of competent professionals and the director in charge should always be a member of the economic council of the committee of the sitting government to facilitate policy co-ordination between annual budget and the medium-term vision,” Mr Pianim suggested.
He said in this instance, the Finance Minister should be under obligation to reassure the Cabinet that his annual budget was broadly in line with the agreed medium-term plan of the NDPC.
He has also called for what he termed “back channel communication” between the President and the leader of the opposition outside the executive and its leadership in parliament for informal consultation as part of the process for the selection and appointment of the key development policy formulation and implementing officials like the NDPC, Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Government Statistician and Chairman of the EC.
According to him, the objective is to ensure that people appointed are men of proven professional standing and competence, as well as independent of the political process and are allowed to operate in line with their internal rules.
He said the consultation was not only to seek the approval of the minority but also for the president to have an open mind for creative listening and to consider objections if well founded. It is also suggested that the confidentiality and secrecy surrounding these consultations should be respected by all.
Mr Pianim said other elements of good economic policy that should receive bipartisan, national consensus support and approval might include the nature and tenure of concessions granted to strategic industries that were encouraged to establish because they had a pioneering role to play or a stimulating effect on the development of a sector with comparative advantage.
He explained that exemptions from income tax, import duties and accelerated depreciation on capital equipment should probably be considered and made proportional to the development impact of the project.
The President of the IEA, Mr Charles Mensa, described the beginning of the institute as risky because during that period in 1989 the future of the country was bleak and without clear direction.
He said there was vacuum in the country for local policy discourse and this offered the multinational institutions to fill the emptiness with all kinds of experimentation ranging from Economic Recovery Programme (ERP), Programme of Action to Mitigate the Social Cost of Adjustment (PAMSCAD), Social Adjustment Programme (SAP), Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategies (GPRS) and Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) initiative.