The Founder of the Kwame Nkrumah Inspired Citizens Movement, Dr Maxwell Awuku, has called for the urgent implementation of Dr Kwame Nkrumah’s Seven-Year Development Plan.
He said the social and economic development-based plan provided the blueprint for the future progress and development of the country and the use of science and technology to revolutionise “our agriculture and industry”.
“It is designed to provide the basis not only of our national progress and prosperity, but also for our ability to contribute to the advancement of the African continent,” he said.
Dr Awuku made this known during a press conference in Accra Monday to commemorate the overthrow of Dr Kwame Nkrumah, the first President of Ghana, on February 24, 1966.
He cited Dr Nkrumah to have said in his speech during the launch of the plan in Parliament that, “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 plan lays its greatest emphasis on the modernisation of agriculture 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 employment 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 consistent with the human dignity of the man of the twentieth century.”
Dr Awuku, therefore, said under the plan, Ghanaians were able to talk about “their ability to achieve”, saying “48 years after his overthrow, and abandonment of the plan, Ghanaians only speak of their capacity to ensure.”
“Today, Ghanaians are talking, criticising and playing blame games. This partisan approach to national issues will not help anybody; we should stop,” he said
He, therefore, suggested that Ghanaians should demand for the adaptation and implementation of the abandoned seven-year plan in order to achieve success in the economy and the nation as a whole.