GHANA • SEVEN-YEAR DEVELOPMENT PLAN 19.63/64 TO 1969/70 PRICE: TEN·SHILLINGS SEVEN-YEAR 'PLAN .' '~, FO,R NATIONAL RECONSTRUCTION AND IDEVELOPMENT FINANCIAL YE'ARS 19,63/64 - 196,9170 Approved by Parliament on 16th March, 1964 OFFICE OF T.H.B PLANN}NG Co~N P.O. Box M.76 ACCRA CONTENTS Page FOREWORD .. v . INTRODUCTION vn SPEECH BY OSAGYEFO ON LAUNCHING THE SEVEN-YEAR DEVEWP~NT PLAN IX CHAPTER I-THE STRATEGY OF GHANA'S ECONOMIC RECONSTRUCTION AND DEVELOPMENT 1 CHAPTER 2-THE TASKS OF THE SEVEN-YEAR PLAN 25 CHAPTER 3-THE NON-GOVERNMENT SECTOR UNDER THE SEVEN-YEAR PLAN 39 CHAPTER 4-AGRICULTURE 53 CHAPTER 5-INDUSTRY AND MINING " 89 CHAPTER 6-INFRASTRUCTURE .. 123 CHAPTER 7-BDUCATION, MANPOWER AND EMPLOYMENT .. 141 CHAPTER 8-HEALTH 175 CHAPTER 9-HoUSING 191 CHAPTER 100THE VOLTA RIVER PROJECT 203 CHAPTER II-PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION .. 215 CHAPTER 12-FOREIGN TRADE AND PAYMENTS 219 CHAPTER I3-FINANCING OF THE PLAN 239 CHAPTER 14-PLAN IMPLEMENTATION AND MANAGEMENT 283 APPENDIX A 304 ApPENDIX B 305 lA FOltEWOBD The Seven-year Development Plan which is now published embodies the proposals in the Party's Programme of Work and Happiness adopted at the Party Congress in July, 1962, and accepted by the country. The. Plan provides the blueprint for the future progress and development of Ghana as a nation. It is a programme of social and economic development based on the use of science and technology to revolutionize our agriculture and industry. It is designed to provide the basis not only of our national progress and prosperity, but also of our ability to contribute to the advancement of the African continent. Our aim is to establish in Ghana a strong and progressive society in which no one will have any anxiety about the basic means of life, about work, food and shelter; where poverty and illiteracy no longer exist and disease is brought under control; and where our educational facilities provide all.the children of Ghana with the best possible opportunities for the development of their potentialities. The material basis for a socialist society can only be created by the labour of its people. This requires the highest sense of dedication on the part of all within the society. In working for the economic and social reconstruction of Ghana, we must see to it that the fruits of the people's labour shall belong to them, n(,}~to any class of exploiters. But first of all we must create the wealth. The only way to build up the national wealth is to maintain a maximum rate of productive investment in industry and agriculture. The Plan, therefore, lays its greatest emphasis on the modernisation of agricul• ture and the most rapid expansion of industrial activity in Ghana. The essential aim of the Plan is to provide for all the people of Ghana who are able and willing to, work, the opportunity for .e~ployment at a high level of productivity. Only in this way can the standard of living of the masses of the African people be raised to a level consisten~ with the human di~ty of the man of the twentieth century. It ~ust be t~e car?lnal duty of all of us In Government, in productive enterprise and l~ our pnvate lives to ensure at all times that everything is done to promote the highest level of activity in agriculture and industry. This development must proceed in such a way as to promote our national Independ~nce ~nd the unity o~ the African continent. We in Ghana have a mixed econ?my In which we have assigned to ?oth public and private enterprise legitimate and Important roles to play In our national development. We intend however to use th~ reso~rces of the State to the maximum degree possible for productive' 't- ment In agnculture and industry. inves FORSWORD The Plan also provides for the development of the social services, of transport and communications, of electJ1ei~ a.m.'~.adlies on a scale hitherto unpre• cedented in Ghana. But proportionately it provides that the rate of investment in agriculture and industry arid in the training of the manpower to run the eOOllomy should increase even faster.· . Apart from the welfare of the indi\ridual Ghanaian, we intend to use the resources which our participation itt the productive economy Yieldsto the State to promote the economic independencSiof Ghana and the unity of'Africa-.It is th~retore planned that the investments of the"lStatein agriculture and industry should be 'so directed that the most strategic sectors of production will come under public Control. Itis also provided in the Plan that Ghana will actively participate in the movemttit towards Africa's economic unity as a part of the eventual.unification·of the cotltinent. Only an economically strong Ghana can play a meaningful role in this historieal process. It is our hope that by the end of this Plan in December, 1970-which wmco~clde with the tenth anniversary of the Republic-firm foundations will have been laid for the complete transformation of Ghana into a strong, industrialised socialist economy and society. The Plan has been prepared by the National Planning Com,missidnunder my Chairmanship, with the assistance of experts from Ghana and abroad. It sets out clearly the effort and sacrifice which will be"required of each of us to enable tlte Plan to succeed. I, for my part, am determined that the Plan shall succeed but my determination must be supported by the combined efforts of the whole nation, in• cluding Members of Parliament, our Public Servants, our farmers and our working people. In this spirit, I charge all of you to study this Plan very carefully and in doing so to consider what Ghana requires of you in respect of its implementation. If we all work hard and conscientiously at our tasks under this Plan, we can look forward with hope to a new Ghana where the opportunities for work and happiness will be matched by the abundant fruits of labour for all. ~, / ....: ~7~ _",,+-,o..l4 President of the Republic of GhanQ . Vl The Planning Commission was. set up in October, 1961 and a start wa~ made then with the building up of an OiliQe,to service it. In spite of the small size .and relativeinexperience of the app~ratus of planning in Ghana it W~Seat"lyon decided to attempt a comprehensive Plan along the lines set out in this document rather th~l) to restrict our planning to the drawing up of a public investment programme as 'ha.dbeen done hitherto in this and other developingcountries. It was obvious that a public economic policy that mostly concerned itself with the traditional govern• ment services was no longer adequate: the gro\Y1hof the productive economy in all Its aspects must now become the central concern of Government. EspeciallY,with the increasing need to define the Qov~rnment's socialist objectives in terms of economic development and to build up rapidly the public and co-operative s,~tor in the productive economy it was no longer possible to maintain the narrower concept of planning. It was also considered necessary to introduce the people of Ghana more fully into the l;)ackgroundand.disciplinesof economic policy; to show them how the sacrifices and efforts that, ~ey tna.~eilltheir own ihdividual sphere contribute to the total national development; how the nation mustset its priorities in order to obtain the maximum progress; how in choosing to do 'one thing we must forgo the chance to do some other desirable thillg--!ispecially, how and wny it is proposed to save a large part of our national wealth to spend OD development in• stead of spending it on immediate constl11ipfion. The Ghana economy is already a fairly complex one. The task of drawing up a comprehensivePlan for it was made more difficult for the new planning organisa• tion by the fact that we are as yet in the process of building up an adequate stock of statistical information about the country. These difficultieswere partly made up for by the nature of the Planning Commission. The membership of the Commission covered a very wide field of knowledgeand experiencedrawn from the civil service, the universitiesand business. This expert body was organised into a series of Commit• tees, each Committee being empowered to co-opt as many other members as it needed. The present Plan is essentiallythe distillation of all the ideas and suggestions thrown up in the course of the work of these Committees throughout 1962.A great debt of gratitude is owed to these members of the Planning Commission-a list of whose names is shown in Appendix A-and to all the other experts who assisted them. In order to draw upon an even wider store of expertise and to profit by the experience of other parts of the world which have passed through or are currently in a similar stage of development to Ghana's a Conference was organised in April, 1963to discuss an earlier draft of the Plan. To this Conference was invited a panel INT.R_UCOON of internationally eminent authorities ir1tae icdd of economies and. plano.. ,.fIGat oth~r African countries (set" ~~.s..tl. maaJ<loW' prefessiollal, business and educational authorities. The sua.stions and criticisms of all these people have helped us to produoe a set of proposals for Ghana's economic develop- meat which we know are ~di1BcuItbut pmoticaa~. Inevitably the result of this first effort at comprehensive planning must be far from perfect from the te,,'bbicat pOint ot view. Much work remains to be done in working out detailed prolranunes of implementation and hi planning inclividual projects.