Chairman of the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), Dr. Nii Moi Thompson, has criticised Ghana’s persistent failure to implement long-term national development plans, warning that the country risks remaining trapped in short-term political cycles at the expense of structural transformation.
Speaking at the Ishmael Yamson & Associates Business Roundtable on the theme “Harnessing the Next Quarter Century: The Infrastructure Imperative,” Dr. Thompson described the absence of a functioning long-term national development framework as “a major blind spot” in Ghana’s development architecture.
According to him, successive governments have produced multiple long-term policy frameworks over the past decade, yet implementation has remained largely absent.
“Over the 10-year period, we then ended up with what is four basically long-term plans that were never implemented,” he stated.
Dr. Thompson listed the abandoned initiatives as the 40-year National Development Plan, Ghana Beyond Aid, Ghana Beyond Return, and Vision 2057.
“So basically we’ve been chasing our tails and hoping that we’ll get to where we want to get to, and it doesn’t work that way,” he added.
He contrasted Ghana’s stalled planning culture with countries pursuing deliberate long-term industrial strategies, citing China’s economic transformation agenda.
“It was the same 2015 that China launched the Made in China programme. A lot of the accomplishments you see there over the past 10 years were started the same year that we started the 40-year national development plan, and then we brushed it aside over some of the most petty complaints,” he said.
Dr. Thompson noted that disagreements over nomenclature and political transitions delayed implementation of the country’s long-term policy framework despite persistent development gaps.
“Some said the name of it wasn’t the right one. So they spent almost a decade quibbling about the fact that it should be called a framework instead of a plan, but children were still studying under trees,” he stressed.
The NDPC Chair also defended the role of the Commission against calls for it to be fully depoliticised, arguing that development planning is inherently political.
“Development as a whole is a political process,” he said.
However, he explained that while the Commission has a political leadership structure aligned with the government of the day, its technical arm remains permanent and non-partisan to ensure continuity across administrations.
Dr. Thompson further disclosed that the NDPC, in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance, has begun sanctioning ministries, departments, and agencies that fail to align expenditure with approved development plans.
According to him, some institutions have historically spent public funds without reference to national plans and failed to provide evidence of implementation outcomes.
“And so starting last year, we worked collectively with the Ministry of Finance and began to punish the various ministries, departments, and agencies that do not comply with the law,” he revealed.
He maintained that stronger institutions, implementation discipline, and long-term planning continuity would be critical if Ghana is to build resilient and sustainable economic growth over the next quarter-century.
