Adopting proactive policy decisions in New Year
As we welcome the new year with high expectations, undertaking Trend Analysis, taking stock of the past and looking forward to the future, it's very important as individuals, society and the nation to reflect on project(s), policy decisions and events that were strongly resisted at the implementation stages due to non-application of basic principles and practices in Project Management, as well as policy decision-making processes.
They are:
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▪Stakeholder Engagement
▪Stakeholder Involvement in the Design and Implementation Stages
▪Execution
▪Monitoring and Evaluation (M & E)
▪Project Closer.
Deep reflections
Have we reflected deeply on why the following projects and policy decisions had implementation and approval difficulties and in some instances ought to be withdrawn or met with low patronage?
They include:
• Power Distribution Services Limited and Electricity Company of Ghana Change over Agreement
• New Parliamentary Chamber Building
• E-Levy
• The National Cathedral
• The Agenda 111 Project and
• Government Domestic Debt Exchange programme
Challenges
Could the Challenges and resistances that affected their policy decisions, implementation processes and executions be attributed to the seeming knowledge gap on the part of the policy makers and implementors when dealing with these specialised areas of procurement and project management?
There's a school of thought that the inability of the policy makers to engage project management practitioners to guide and provide sound professional advice in the project initiation, design, implementation and execution stages contribute significantly to why policy decisions taken and project management are having setbacks and challenges, which are avoidable.
Debate
Why should we argue endlessly, debate and fight in the full view of the cameras at no other place than the Parliament of Ghana, for a policy about to be approved and implemented? Do we have to threaten to strike before policy decisions, statements etc., are withdrawn?
For how long should we continue to be doing the same things and expect different results; implementing a policy decision and when fearlessly resisting would then result in spending time and resources to go back to the stakeholders to convince them to accept a policy decision, even though the stakeholders were not engaged and involved in the decision and Implementation processes from the onset.
New dawn
The year 2023 should be a NEW DAWN, giving birth to the way officialdom would no more ignore contributions, suggestions and recommendations from those in the academia, experts and professionals coming out with intellectual property, being their in-depth analysis and experience in the areas under review as their contribution to nation building.
We plead with the Ministry of Information and other relevant agencies mandated to manage the government's information to focus on gathering news from feature articles and other contributions on Radio, TV, Print Media as well as Social Media for consideration, approval and implementation.
Ghana stands to gain tremendously should we follow the Nigerian example of listening to professionals and experts which has made the latter one of the major producers of local rice for export.
The Writer is Executive Director, Your Procurement Eye
E-mail: [email protected]