A review of the decentralization policy of Ghana in the context of the district assembly sub-structures
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Date
2005-11-03
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Abstract
Centralized system of government and development planning in the Developing World particularly in Ghana was seen as a bane to sustainable and equitable development and fbr that matter the best reason lbr the under development of countries within this brackets. Consultation with beneficiaries of development programmes and projects was completely absent resulting in lack of community ownership and sustainability of projects and programmes.
Ghana embarked upon a local government reforms and decentralization programme in 1988 under the then PNDC government, which passed the local government law PNDC Law 207, of 1988 to put the reform in place. The principal reason behind the reform programme was the devolution of power and responsibilities to the local government bodies (DAs) to promote local development and improve the standard of living of the populace in a sustainable manner, through local democracy. The background to Ghana’s decentralization policy was against the backdrop that a greater majority of the citizenry was excluded from the management of public affairs and most importantly in governance in the past. “Power to the people” was the catch phrase that underpinned the decentralization policy.
A Legislative Instrument (L.J. 1589) under the Local Government Act, 1993 (Act 462), also established the District Assembly Sub-structures (Sub-metro, Zonal, TownlArea Councils and Unit Committees), which forms the base structure of the local government system of Ghana and within, which people’s participation in local governance and development can take place. The decentralization policy mandates the MMDAs to stimulate and enhance development at the local level through the SDSs. But these SDSs in most MMDAs are still either non-operational or inefficient in the performance of their roles and responsibilities. Indeed, in some places, they only exist on paper.
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Essentially, this study was conducted to review the entire decentralization policy with focus rather on the S1)Ss at the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assembly Levels in order to assess the effectiveness of the structures and processes of their implementation.
Questionnaires and Key Informant Interview guides were the major tools of investigation. A number of focus group discussions were also conducted with groups of some major stakeholders at the SDSs level.
The research findings and conclusions indicated that there is inadequate commitment of both policy makers (government) and implementers (MMDAs) to the functionality of the SDSs. This was evidenced by the lack of complete devolution to the SDSs level and the irregular transfer of the 5% DAC and 50% IGF to the SDSs for their operation.
Perhaps, the most important recommendation based on the output of the study is that, government and all local government stakeholders should rededicate their commitments towards the operationalisation of the SDSs by undertaking a comprehensive review of the local government law to make the system more efficient and capable of engendering sustainable local and equitable development.
Description
A Thesis submitted to the Department of Planning,
Kwarne Nkrumah University of Science and Technology
In Partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Science in Development Policy and Planning, 2005