Era of lofty promises to win political power – Can manifestos develop without binding national development plan?

Ghana goes to the polls on December 7, 2024, to elect new Members of Parliament and a President.

The popular contenders in the presidential race are Mr John Dramani Mahama of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Dr Mahamudu Bawumia of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Mr Alan John Kyeremanten of the Movement for Change (MFC), and Nana Kwame Bediako of the New Force Movement (NFM).

The popular contenders have so far launched their manifestos with titles such as Resetting Ghana, Jobs, Accountability and Prosperity by the NDC, Selfless Leadership, Bold Solutions for Jobs and Business by NPP, the Great Transformational Plan by MFC, and the 12 Pillars for Economic Freedom by the NFM.

A section of Ghanaians remains sceptical about some of the promises in the manifestos, given their experience with failed promises by some politicians in the two leading political parties, the NDC and the NPP.

Examples include Mr Mahama’s inability to fulfil his promise of removing all schools under trees during his tenure as president between 2013 and 2017, and Dr Bawumia’s inability to fulfil his promise to stabilise the Ghana Cedi over the past 7 years of being in power as the Vice-President of the country.

Voters are also worried about the sources of funding for the many promises in the various manifestos and whether taxes will be levied on them to fund these promises, with implications for the cost of living in the country.

Manifestos, sources of funding

It is worrying to note that none of the two leading political parties in the country, the NPP and NDC, provided estimates of the funds needed to prosecute the policies in their manifestos.

Moreover, the manifestos failed to accurately show voters where and how funds would be secured to fulfil the promises.

It is interesting to note that both of the popular political parties are promising to scrap some taxes including the e-levy, COVID tax and tax on bet winnings.

While they are in the interest of the voters, they will have revenue implications for the government. The two leading political parties, however, hope to make up for this loss by making less ministerial appointments and scrapping the ex gratia payments.

Promises

Currently, one would expect that countries interested in achieving sustainable development would have an agreed-upon long-term development plan from which political manifestos would be drawn from.

The parties would then tell the electorate how best they would implement the policies in the development plan to achieve some targets at a given period.

While Ghana has a 40-year development plan spanning 2018 to 2057, it only serves as a guide for political parties to draw their campaign policies and is not a binding document.

Indeed, the 40-year development plan came about as a result of the recognition that Ghana was lagging behind its peers at independence in 1957, such as Malaysia, Taiwan, and South Korea, because they have been consistently implementing successive long-term national development plans.

The development plan not being binding has left the various parties and aspirants to come up with their promises to win votes, caring less about whether they can implement them or not.

As a result, voters are witnessing a competition of lofty promises that may never see the light of day.

In the end, whoever wins power is not motivated to continue the unfinished projects of the previous administration but starts new projects which they mostly do not complete.

This has led to several unfinished government projects dotted around the country and billions of cedis of wasted taxpayer funds.

This cycle of unfinished projects retards the country’s development, leads to wastage of resources and increases costs to finally complete them.

Now more than ever, the long-term development plan should be made a binding document subject to periodic reviews for the political parties to draw their policies on how best they can implement the plans contained therein.

This will enable voters to know which political party or aspirant is innovative at implementing the agreed-upon policies in the development plan.

Moreover, political parties that align their manifestos to the national development plan should be considered for incentives, either monetary or material, from the state as part of the campaign financing reforms that some notable CSOs such as the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development and the Ghana Integrity Initiative are advocating.

Finally, the various political parties and aspirants are urged to cost their manifestos and clearly show where and how they will raise funds to fulfil them to demonstrate their feasibility to the voters.

The writer is an Economist/founder Akurase Mpuntuo Foundation.
E-mail: pdadzie03@gmail.com