Decentralization and solid waste management- a comparative study of Berekum and Dormaa Municipalities

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Date
August, 2015
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
Waste management remains a major challenge for any society, since all natural processes generate waste. However; it often competes with more pressing economic and social issues such as fiscal and trade matters, unemployment and poverty, education and health, and crime and security. Even within the domain of environmental sustainability, the management of waste has had to play second fiddle to fundamental challenges such as land and coastal degradation, biodiversity loss, and climate change. This has resulted in a total failure on the part of government to provide effective Solid Waste Management (SWM) for the people. The government of Ghana in trying to solve the menace of waste has decentralized waste management to promote accountability, as well as to introduce competition and cost consciousness into the public sector and develop a new role for the state in enabling and regulating. The thesis is a comparative study on the decentralized solid waste management in Berekum and Dormaa Municipalities. Specifically, the study analysed the evolving involvement of the private sector in SWM, the service quality of the companies in the two municipalities and the influence of private sector capacity and local government regulations on private sector. In order to establish the magnitude and causes of performance problems and possible policy interventions to these problems, the following questions were addressed in this study: Has decentralized SWM evolved to ensured sustainable service delivery? What is the service quality of decentralized SWM systems? What factors explain the differences in service quality of the decentralized SWM? A survey of 312 households was conducted in the 2 municipalities. Households’ perceptions about the existing service quality were rated on a scale from one to five and scores calculated. Household data were analysed to determine the extent of involvement of the residents and quality of service and residents’ satisfaction. The implications of the study for performance improvement, regulatory policy, and sustainable service delivery have been explored. The conclusions drawn from the study were that there was a significant difference in service quality within the municipalities and not between the municipalities. There were no mechanisms for full cost recovery to include majority of the residents who patronize communal collection service, there were weak regulatory practices and non-adherence to contractual obligations. In the light of these problems enumerated above, the research study recommended the adherence to formal rules, use of appropriate cost recovery mechanism for low income group, and restructuring of institutional arrangements to ensure bottom-up approach to user involvement, enforcement of legislation and capacity building.
Description
A thesis submitted to the School of Graduate Studies, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, in partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Award of Master of Science Degree in Development Policy and Planning, 2015
Keywords
Citation