‘Focus on key projects’

HAVING too many district and provincial development plans can cause confusion and affect implementation of projects, National Planning and Monitoring Department secretary Koney Samuel says.
“Which development or particular project to work on is the confusion,” he said.
Samuel was responding to a query why some development plans did not work for some districts and provinces.
He said some plans were too ambiguous and thus the planners were bogged down with meetings with much to discuss instead of implementing the projects.
However, Samuel said, there had to be a practical time frame for the planners to identify the few priority projects to launch and complete within five years.
“Another reason for failures is a lack of respect with politicians seemingly in total control of much of the resources,” he said.
“We should sell the plans to the politicians so that they can be adequately financed. Resources are scarce and therefore limited and unable to meet the high demand and competition.
“We are trying to manage the limited resources to support what we think are the key government priorities. We need to come up with more practical plans that we can finance with the limited resources.”