PNDC/NDC: Setting the Records Straight (Vol. 1)

Was the Rawlings Regime legitimate? Has any regime been legitimate? Who defines legitimacy? The ruler or the ruled?

The introductory literature compels the reader to look at regime legitimacy with panoramic lenses.

It looks at a societal conflict model where “powerful, local groups overwhelm the centre and undermine its ability to offer effective leadership” and the state contraction model, where  “the weak state, plagued by incapacity and ‘immobilism’ may deteriorate from within”. It was the state contraction model that ushered in the June 4th Revolution because; the state could not offer effective leadership; losing credibility as a political and economic manager.

Who is a Ghanaian? How do we define ourselves?

A journey of nostalgic reminiscence reveals the first establishment of foreign hegemony in Gold Coast, the historicity in the struggles between European dominance of the Coastal Belt; the formation of the Aborigines Rights Protection Society; and the struggles culminating in the advent of the PNDC.

Against this background, the Book chronicles the policies, plans, programmes and projects of the Rawlings Regime such as:

• The famous ERP and PAMSCAD
• The JSS/SSS school systems
• Improvements in the sanitation situation of Ghana
• The development of youth and sports
• A decade of trunk roads rehabilitations
• The foundation of Primary Health Care Programme
• The genesis of Land Administration reforms and title registrations
• Local governance reforms
• The mapping of our mineral resources

This Book provides a glimpse of how the Rawlings Regime shaped the present political and economic landscapes through structural and institutional reforms.