The poor layout, infrastructure and development challenges currently facing Ghana has been attributed to poor governance.
A development and urban planner, Kofi Kekeli Amedzro, who made the claim, argued that although there are detailed plans on how Ghana could address such challenges, successive governments have turned a blind eye to them.
According to him, Ghana would have gone far in development, if such plans had been implemented.
“As a planner, personally, I’m not very proud. Most of these challenges are governance issues,” he lamented on the Citi Breakfast Show on Wednesday, when the issue of Ghana not having what is known as smart cities was being discussed.
[contextly_sidebar id=”mOHzdjluIR9siyRUc87B15U9YqoRYRAj”]A smart city is a municipality that uses information and communication technologies to increase operational efficiency, share information with the public and improve both the quality of government services and citizen welfare.
Today [Wednesday], November 8, 2017, marks the world Town and country Planning Day. The day has been set aside to ensure that more attention is given to development and urban planning across the world.
Speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show, Mr. Amedro stated that, the lack of proper planning is a problem that has to be tackled with the seriousness it needs.
“We do not demand that the right things are done. Currently, the Greater Accra Regional Spatial Development plan has been prepared. And this involves a number of public institutions talking of the transport ministry, urban roads and almost all the ministries, departments and agencies in Accra. But you realize that when it comes to budgeting and planning annually, they are put aside and different thing is being done. So you have the plan alright, but nothing is being done to achieve these plans,” he added.
The development planner also suggested to the district assemblies to put measures in place to develop medium-term development plans going forward to address future development needs.
“When you take the district assemblies for instance, what is their spatial plan for the next five to twenty years? Economically, what do they want to do to generate jobs. Where are they going to have their job centres, what kind of mass transit systems are they going to develop? In terms of education, bearing in mind the population trend, when you look at the age cohorts, what is the expected number of students we would have, so that we start planning this entire infrastructure? But most of the time they are neglected and we look at the economic or social issues without looking at how they are linked to space, that’s the major issue we’ve been talking about and it seems nothing is being done,” Mr. Amedzro said.
–
By: Godwin Akweiteh Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @AlloteyGodwin