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The Adjustment of Central Bodies to Decentralization: The Case of the Ghanaian Bureaucracy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2014

Joseph R.A. Ayee
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Extract

One of the important factors that influences the successful implementation of decentralization is the support of, and commitment to, decentralization by the bureaucracy (Cheema and Rondinelli 1983; Rondinelli 1981). In other words, decentralization may be undermined if the bureaucracy opposes arrangements that threaten its power and control. In the Ghanaian case, for instance, the bureaucracy (made up of line Ministries in Accra and their deconcentrated offices in 10 regions and 110 districts) had been blamed by the government of the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) that ruled the country from 31 December 1981 to 6 January 1993, as the main stumbling block to the implementation of the government's decentralization program launched in 1987. In the words of the Minister of Local Government:

Decentralization has not taken place in Ghana. The reason largely is that the bureaucracy…particularly the top management personnel…is not in favour of decentralization. Every impediment has been placed in the way of implementing the decentralization programme. Top civil servants do not want to know. Some have deliberately confused it with an exercise in deconcentration (Ahwoi 1992a, 23).

By deconcentration, the Minister was referring to the delegation authority for the discharge of specified functions to the staff of a central government ministry or department at the local level to make administrative decisions on behalf of the central government or authority. In such a case, the delegated power continues to be subject to the central authority's supervision.

Type
Articles
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 40 , Issue 2 , September 1997 , pp. 37 - 57
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1997

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