Authority For Government Interventions

The need to have an Authority to have an oversight responsibility over government’s intervention programmes is apt. The numerous government interventions and their persistent failures need an authority to control the powers given to individuals that act on behalf of the state in running its intervention programmes. An authority to give government intervention programmes direction should be created. Such an authority should be similar to the Ghana Revenue Authority which controls and houses the many revenue generating agencies in Ghana. The power to enforce rules or give orders that will be followed strictly to the finished line should reside in the bosom of the chief Executive Officer of the said Authority to prevent arbitrary use and abuse of power by people who man the affairs of government intervention programmes.

The vice president of IMANI Africa expressed similar sentiments on twitter. In his expressed opinion, he called for an Authority to run all state sponsored intervention programmes such as the free SHS, LEAP, NHIS, School feeding NABCO etc. This opinion expressed on his twitter handle urging the government to have an umbrella or an authority for managing all social interventions under a national welfare scheme after a welfare state had been built is sincerely felt and supported. His call is not out of place as the various social intervention strategies adopted by governments either present or past, encounter serious implementation challenges. The men in charge of these programmes are oft-times allowed to freely choose alternatives based on their intuitions for the state. Their decisions are mostly flavoured politically and as such do not typify value for money. From the conception of such ideas to their implementation, the politicians design their personal agenda and tailor their goals through them, especially political goals through such interventions without focusing on the main intentions of the programmes. As such, the objects conceived to achieve with such programmes are not ultimately achieved. Many of them become amorphous vehicles through which party agenda are achieved.

A careful and an insightful analysis of the workings of these social intervention programmes will reveal a waste in the system. Many financial and other resources that could have been used to arrive at many state set targets are wasted through the operations of these social intervention programmes. A case in point is the use of state financial resources to run state microfinance activities (activities of MASLOC) which party members see as assets that must be shared to them.

The investments made by MASLOC to the people of Ghana either to party members or non-party members go nose-dive or come to nothing. Such interventions have noble intentions but the operations of the programmes are wrought with flaws and failures. Such blemishes can only be unscrambled by having all of them put under one authority that will ensure an efficient management of these programmes and tax payers’ money as well as state resources. Funds loaned to people using MASLOC as a vehicle are not returned and the defaulters go free without punishment.

The creation of authorities have proven beneficial to the stakeholders of development in Ghana. The case of the Ghana Revenue Authority can be relied upon to conclude that having an integrated system to standardise the operations of many establishments is salutary. The leakage in the collection and management of revenue has not been obliterated totally. However, the situation in the revenue sub-sector has improved. Many other agencies that have their own authorities have demonstrated efficiency in performance. There needs to be an authority that will have supreme power and supervisory responsibility over the activities of these programmes.

Many of these interventions do not have special legislations that enforce the strict observance of their orders. They are being manipulated by the whims and caprices of political parties’ leaders and governments. Directives issued by party executives have the power and potency to twist the decisions of CEOs or managers of these programmes. The interventions have witnessed several failures for far too long especially the already existing or created ones. The new additions will suffer the same fate even worse than the ones experienced in the past. There should be a legislative instrument that must ensure how social intervention programmes must run. The status quo is precarious for the attainment of the set goals to be achieved in social welfare for the people.

The intended purposes of such programmes are always diverted from the original. Many thoughtful considerations need to be reckoned. Allowing the political parties to handle social welfare policies is chancy. There must be an authority that can take its own decisions in designing the policies for such programmes, seeking source of funding such programmes, budgeting for their own expenditures, making profitable investments with state monies and finding appropriate means of recovering the money that must be recouped. Such an authority will help prevent a lot of waste in the public sector in an attempt to seek the welfare of the people. From the foregoing discussed issues I support the creation of an authority for state social interventionism.

Emmanuel Kwabena Wucharey.