The Effects of Bureaucracy on Policy Implementation in the Public Sector ‘A Case Study of Ghana Audit Service, Ashanti Region’

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Date
2011
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Abstract
Policy implementation is one of the challenges facing public sector institutions. This study attempted to find out the bureaucratic effect of policy implementation within the Ghana Audit Service (GAS), Ashanti Region. In all, 76 structured questionnaires were administered to staff of different ranks in Ghana Audit Service, Kumasi Office. The questionnaires were analysed using Statistical Package of Social Scientist (SPSS), where relationships between variables were established. The results from the study show that there are various policies such as performance appraisal policy, Computer Assisted Audit Techniques and Risk based Audit approach policy etc. within the GAS. However, implementation is poor and affected by bureaucracy, dissemination of information and lack of logistical supports. Most of these policies are formulated from the GAS Headquarters in Accra and rolled to the regional and district offices. Though GAS has means of evaluating and monitoring policies, these structures are less effective resulting in poor implementation of policies. It is therefore recommended that there should be proper decentralization of policy issues to regional and district offices. Furthermore, frequent transfer of staff should also be reduced to enable staff fully benefit from policies implementation programmes rolled out to them. Training Programmes should also be adequately provided to help with appropriate orientation, skills and best practices of techniques to minimize bureaucratic tendencies. It is therefore recommended that further research on effectiveness of policy evaluation mechanism and how to remove bureaucratic bottlenecks within GAS should be carried out.
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A Thesis submitted to the Institute of Distance Learning, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Commonwealth Executive Masters of Business Administration,
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