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Decentralisation in Planning and Economic Decision-Making in Ghana

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Leslie E. Grayson
Affiliation:
Graduate School of Business Administration, University of Virginia, Charlottesville

Extract

‘The general guide should be to transfer power to the smallest unit consistent with the scale of the problem.’ This quotation is based on the experience of the United States, but should be even more applicable to less-developed countries, because of their poor system of communications. In this article I shall examine the attempts to decentralise planning and economic decision-making in Ghana, analyse the rationale for such moves away from centralisation, and evaluate the Ghanaian experience against the existing body of knowledge on this subject and the special local conditions that are relevant.

Type
Africana
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1975

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References

Page 126 note 2 Goodwin, Richard N., ‘Reflections. The Sources of Public Unhappiness’, in The New Yorker (New York), 4 01 1969, p. 50.Google Scholar

Page 126 note 3 Kudiabor, C. D. K., ‘Growth Poles and Centres in Regional Development Planning in Ghana’, U.N. Research Institute for Social Development, Geneva, 20 05 1971.Google Scholar

Page 126 note 4 See Chapters 2 and II by Kalitsi, E. A. K. in Chambers, Robert (ed.), The Volta Resettlement Experience (London, 1970).Google Scholar

Page 126 note 5 Cf. Report of the Northern Territories Council Committee on General Development in the Northern Territories (Tamale, 1954).Google Scholar

Page 126 note 6 Such irregularities were, of course, dwarfed by those at the centre under Nkrumah and uncovered by subsequent investigating commissions. Cf. Werlin, Herbert H., ‘The Roots of Corruption – the Ghanaian enquiry’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies (Cambridge), x, 2, 07 1972, pp. 247–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Page 127 note 1 No mention is made of decentralisation in ‘Process of Planning’, in Birmingham, Walter, Neustadt, I., and Omaboe, E. N. (eds.), A Study of Contemporary Ghana (London, 1966), Vol. I, pp. 458–9;Google Scholar nor is there a word about this in the One-Year Development Plan (Accra, 1970).Google Scholar

Page 127 note 2 Waterston, Albert, Practical Program of Planning for Ghana (Accra, 1966),Google Scholar and ‘Development Planning in Ghana: an account of progress made’, March 1967. Cf. also his Development Planning: lessons of experience (Baltimore, 1965);Google Scholar‘A Hard Look at Development Planning’, in Finance and Development (Washington), 06 1966, pp. 8591;Google Scholar and ‘An Operational Approach to Development Planning’, ibid. December 1969, pp. 38–42. Regional planning is mentioned by Waterston in ‘Resolving the Three-Horned Planning Dilemma’, ibid. June 1972, p. 41, and ‘The Coming Surge in Regional Planning’, U.N. Planning Conference, Kiev, 10 1972.Google Scholar

Page 127 note 3 Afrifa, A. A., ‘A New Device for Decentralizing Development Planning in Ghana’, Accra, 04 1967.Google Scholar He later claimed – in the Daily Graphic (Accra), 9 12 1967Google Scholar that the greatest achievement of the N.L.C. had been to broaden the base of the country's economic planners.

Page 127 note 4 Outline of Government Economic Policy (Accra, 1967), p. 3,Google Scholar and Two-Year Development Plan (Accra, 1968), pp. 1921.Google Scholar It is interesting to note that only the regional set-up provided for an ‘organised’ contact between the public and private sectors: there were no such arrangements at either the national or sectoral levels.

Page 128 note 1 Two-Year Development Plan. Annual Report on Plan Implementation (Accra, 1970), pp. 42–3.Google Scholar

Page 128 note 2 Outline of Government Economic Policy (Accra, 1972), p. 18.Google Scholar

Page 128 note 3 Report of the Commission on the Structure and Remuneration of the Public Service in Ghana (Accra, 1967), especially pp. 27;Google Scholar and Barrington, T. J. and Sarpong, M. A. B., The Development of Local Government in Ghana (Accra, 1967),Google Scholar mimeographed.

Page 129 note 1 ‘Decentralization of the Public Service’, Office of Government Machinery Circular No. 1/68, Accra, July ig68; also Nanjundian, H. N. and Marfo, S. A., ‘Proposed Regional Organisation’, O.G.M., Accra, 1968,Google Scholar and ‘Local Administration Bill’, in Ghana Gazette (Accra), 25 11 1970.Google Scholar

Page 129 note 2 U.N. Meeting of Experts on Administrative Aspects of National Development Planning (Paris, 1964),Google Scholar mimeographed. See also Economic Development in Selected Countries. Plans, Programs and Agencies (New York, 1950),Google Scholar and Planning for Economic Development (New York, 1965),Google Scholar both U.N. publications.

Page 129 note 3 Watson, Andrew and Dirlam, Joel, ‘The Impact of Underdevelopment on Economic Planning’, in Quarterly Journal of Economics (Cambridge, Mass.), 05 1965, p. 308.Google Scholar

Page 130 note 1 Lewis, W. Arthur, Development Planning (London, 1966), pp. 103–4.Google Scholar See also Hunter, Guy, The Best of Both Worlds (London, 1967), pp. 129–30.Google Scholar

Page 131 note 1 Mason, Edward, ‘Some Aspects of the Strategy of Development Planning – centralization vs decentralization’, in Organization, Planning and Programming for Economic Development. U.S. Conference on the Application of Science and Technology for the Benefit of the L.D.C.s (Washington, 1962), Vol. VIII, p. 13.Google Scholar

Page 131 note 2 Schatz, Sayre, ‘The Influence of Planning on Development: the Nigerian experience’, in Social Research (New York), 01 1961, p. 454.Google Scholar

Page 131 note 3 Outline of Government Economic Policy, 06 1972, p. 18.Google Scholar

Page 132 note 1 Excessive centralisation is as wide-spread in South America as it is in Africa, yet that continent has been without colonial rule for about 150 years.

Page 132 note 2 See Stolper, W. F., Planning Without Facts (Cambridge, Mass., 1966).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Page 133 note 1 Regional planning was included in The Proposals of the Constitutional Commission for a Constitution for Ghana (Accra, 1968), pp. 181–2.Google Scholar

Page 133 note 2 Review of the Mills-Odoi Report by the Administrative Committee of the N.L.C. (Accra, 1969), mimeographed, p. 64.Google Scholar