Reforms In The Local Government Service – My Thoughts

We have long realised the importance of local governance in the achievement of our developmental aspirations as a nation. It is therefore not surprising that a whole chapter (Chapter 20) in our 1992 Republican Constitution is dedicated to decentralisation and local government. Article 240 (1) emphatically states that ‘Ghana shall have a system of local government and administration which shall, as far as practicable, be decentralised’.

The current system of local governance can be said to have its inspiration from PNDCL 207 of 1988 where decentralisation and local government got a major boast in this country. PNDCL 207 was later replaced with the Local Government Act of 1993, Act 462. In 2003, the newest service of the Public Services of Ghana was born with the passage of the Local Government Service Act of 2003, Act 656.

The object of the Local Government Service, as contained in section 3 of Act 656, is “to secure the effective administration and management of local government in the country”. It has been over twelve (12) years since assenting and gazetting Act 656 into law. And how effective have we secured the “effective administration and management” of local government? These are the vexed matters of this article and I intend to challenge the current system by proffering some ideas that have been bothering my mind for some time now.

The Local Government Service like many other public sector organisations in Ghana is bedevilled with many teething challenges. Some of these challenges include institutional inertia, corruption, interference in many forms, weak accountability systems, weak administrative systems, inadequate human resource, and woefully inadequate resources just to mention a few.

Though I believe most of these challenges have to do with what we have become as a people (greed and selfishness), a lot also have to do with the frameworks we have adopted for ourselves as a people. For me, attitudes can be shaped towards the general good if we adopt the proper frameworks based on who we are as a people. Today, based on our attitude and the frameworks we have adopted, these challenges manifest themselves in several ways in the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) effectively making them ineffective in meeting the needs of their constituents.

Several reforms before and after the birth of the Service have, in my view, failed to bring about the needed effectiveness. Several capacity building programmes have also failed to inject the needed changes in the system. I am just about eight (8) years old in the service and I have lost count of the number of capacity building workshops I have attended. You can imagine what the case would be for those who are over fifteen (15) years old in the service and currently occupying senior positions. If there is anything that should have ensured that MMDAs function better than they are doing today, it should have been the concept of the District Development Facility (DDF) and the Functional Organisational Assessment Tool (FOAT).

The concept is simple! Do what you are appointed and paid to do as required by law, regulations and other protocols. You will be assessed every year on your performance and if you meet a certain criteria (based on your roles and responsibilities as an MMDA) you will be rewarded with funds to carry out more developmental projects. I can tell you on authority that this concept has been abused and it has become a pale shadow of itself. Isn’t it about time we started asking ourselves the very hard questions? Why are we where we are?

The reasons are many but I will at the moment concentrate on two – over concentration of power and authority on some positions in the service and out-of-touch schemes of Service. The field of Public Administration has changed from the Traditional Public Administration (TPA) to New Public Management (NPM) and now the world is talking about New Public Service (NPS) with very distinctive features and characteristics.

Empirically, it appears we are just picking and applying the principles and practice of these new forms of Public Administration and imposing them on a structure or framework that is based on the old or classical models of public administration. Perhaps this is a legacy of most of the public sector reforms which focused on improving performance of public organisations but paid little attention to the need to adjust existing systems, structures and practice to suit the reforms.

Today, in the public sector it is a commonplace to hear public servants say this is how it is done rather than this is the best way to do it when they are challenged. Why? Because the public servant has not changed in his mentality probably due to the framework in which s/he still operates. So, while it is good to sign performance contracts and set up client service centres, they will amount to nothing if the fundamental structure of the service does not change.

We have to move from the tall hierarchical approach to accountability where administrators are responsible to elected officials and political appointees to a multifaceted approach to accountability where public servants are guided by law, values, professional norms and citizen interests. We have to move from bureaucratic organisational structures with top-down authority and control to collaborative structures with shared leadership.

Let me now attempt to explain why I think we have over concentrated power and authority on a few positions and the issue of out-of-date scheme of service. The constitution in Article 243 (2) (b) and (c) says “The District Chief Executive shall be responsible for the day-to-day performance of the executive and administrative functions of the District Assembly and be the chief representative of the Central Government in the district”. Same is quoted in section 20 (b) and (d) of the Local Government Act but the Act even goes further to add in section 20(c) that “The District Chief Executive is responsible for the supervision of the departments of the Assembly”. In summary, the District Chief Executive (DCE) is the Executive, Administrative and Political head of the MMDAs. In simple language, the DCE is responsible for everything that has to do with the day-to-day running of the MMDAs. You can’t do anything without the approval of the DCE.

The funny part of this confused system (as a colleague called it) is that when it comes to holding people accountable, it is those we have made responsible for nothing by the way we have structured the Service that we call to answer. How many DCEs or Regional Ministers (RMs) appeared before the Ghana@50 Commission of Inquiry to answer questions? From what I saw, it was the Regional Coordinating Directors (RCDs) and District Coordinating Directors (DCDs) who were grilled even though during the Ghana@50 celebrations, the DCEs and RMs were in charge.

This trend is even more pronounced when it comes to our audits and audit reports. I will refer to the 2014 Annual Audit report presented to parliament by the Auditor-General to further buttress this point. The Auditors found in Paragraph 91 that 11 MMDAs in Ashanti Region went contrary to section 16(1a) of the Financial Administration Act by paying a total amount of GH¢88,188.61 for goods and services that were not delivered. Very criminal, if you ask me! Then when it came to recommendations and who to hold accountable for this criminal act, this is what paragraph 92 says: “We recommended that management of the Assemblies should pursue delivery of all items paid for, failing which the amount should be recovered from the Coordinating Directors and their Finance Officers”.

So, my question is, what about the DCEs who are the political, executive and administrative heads of the MMDAs and supervisors of all departments in the MMDAs? They are absolved of any wrongdoing right? Isn’t this problematic? Except that these expenditures were not approved by the DCEs concerned which in itself amounts to a breach of the law, I am of the considered opinion that this is a non-enforceable recommendation since the axe is directed at the wrong persons.

Again, whatever the case maybe, the DCEs cannot escape blame by the way we have carved our laws. They can be said to be negligent or to be fair to them, they have simply been given too many roles and responsibilities that are practically impossible for them to execute.

The report of the Commission of Inquiry on the Ghana@50 celebrations as part of their recommendations, advocated for the review of the Local Government Act (and the 1992 Constitution I will add) in order to create specific roles for DCDs on the one part and to reduce the powers vested in the DCEs on the other part. This is the way to go if we are to move towards a collaborative structure with shared leadership that I referred to earlier. This will be in tune with current public service practice. Unfortunately, this issue did not come up in the discussions of the Constitutional Review Commission except the mentioning of a deputy DCE which in some sense is an admission that DCEs have too many roles and I did not see any changes to this effect too in the draft Consolidated Local Government Bill the last time I glanced through it.

These are the issues, for me, which should concern a Service that is meant “to secure the effective administration and management of local government in the country”.

I will end here and come back with part two of this article which will tackle the issue of out-of-touch schemes of service since this is becoming too long an article. I remember someone accusing me of writing “open books” and calling them “open letters”. Ha! Ha!!...

I shall surely be back!

Charles A. Akurugu

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