Page 137 - Afrika Must Unite

122 AFRICA MUST UNITE
not only output and the absorption of planned numbers of
workers in the different categories and at different levels, but will
arrange for the training of skilled workers, and of managers and
executives qualified and able to see that the planned projects are
carried out efficiently, economically and to schedule.
W ithin the general planning are included our educational,
social welfare and health programmes. They are devised in
relation to the needs of our healthy development and the
improvement of the lives of the people. Apart from the
hum anitarian principles by which the government is guided, an
educated, healthy population represents the hum an investment
in our development, and anything that can be spared from our
surpluses will be added to the already planned allocations for the
purpose.
O ur planning will stretch out into the regions beyond the
main centres. At the present time there are big differences in the
degree of economic and social development between the various
regions of the country, and our population density is extremely
uneven. Regional planning will contribute to reducing the
differences by providing a more even distribution of economic
activity between the various regions, by utilizing the natural
potentialities of each region. It will also aim at controlling and
reducing unnecessary migration, with its attendant problems.
O ur over-all planning, in short, will be designed to unify and
discipline economic activity. It will expand the creative spirit of
the people by the tasks of responsibility that will be given them in
management, supervision and invention.
Control from the top must ensure that individual executives
and administrators do not misinterpret policy and instructions
and break out of the co-ordinated pattern with the introduction
of improvised schemes. As we proceed, it may be found that
certain priorities may have to give way to others which may
present themselves as more urgent in relation to the needs of
capital formation or strategic development. Thus, while there
must be the strictest control to safeguard against unrelated over­
spreading on any project, there must be a certain elasticity to
allow for emendation or adjustment without upsetting the
general plan and our budgeting.
O ur present budgetary and fiscal systems have been taken over