Decentralization on Trial: The Case of Ghana's District Assemblies

Abstract

Introduction Ghanaians have had to travel to Accra, our nation's capital, even for things as basic as passport application forms. Realizing that many of us travel long ways for numerous basic services from our central government, the government has instituted, through our Ministry, a program of public-service decentralization.(1) In 1987, Ghana's erstwhile military administration, the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) under Jerry Rawlings, decentralized both budgeting and economic development (hereafter referred to as ED) by instituting 110 District Assemblies or DAs.(2) The primary rationale is to effectively employ a basic human-needs or BHN approach to improve the living conditions of the people, using these DAs as the instruments for making localities determine their respective ED destinies.(3) This article is a recent case study of those subnational bodies, addressing certain important decentralization problems and issues in post-independent Ghana. The article also highlights some of the development dilemmas confronting developing societies of the world, particularly their subnational financing of development projects. Specifically, the article addresses the following questions: 1. Why were the District Assemblies instituted? 2. What specific roles do they play in grassroots ED? 3. What makes the implementation of their policies problematic? 4. How can these difficulties be ameliorated? The study offers fruitful and penetrating insights into some of the reasons for the success or failure of subnational governments not only in Ghana but also in developing countries. The focus of this article, however, is more the theoretical framework of decentralization within which the DAs operate and less the activities of these grassroots entities. The lack of that framework can best be understood when one considers the neglect of decentralization during the country's imperialist era. Colonial Neglect of Decentralization Since 1986, there has been a shift to subnational ED in Ghana under 110 DAs. To enable one to recognize the importance of this governmental action, one needs to be familiar with the country's administrative scene before independence in 1957. During the country's colonial administration (and for the greater part of the post-independence era), the governmental apparatus for political and economic decisionmaking was highly centralized. There was little or no involvement of the local communities, a system resulting in poorly planned and poorly executed district and regional projects. In particular, the country's colonial administrators limited their governing role to a few public-works projects, notably feeder roads to areas with foreign-exchange-earning commodities (e.g., gold, cocoa, etc.), as well as to maintaining law and order. Therefore, the national budget was small. The point of the foregoing is that ED, as we know it today, was virtually unknown.(4) Also, budgeting for the purposes of improving the people's human conditions was not a major objective of the colonial administrators, and it was not until after independence that Ghana's public budgets have been designed to reflect meaningful and realistic ED programs/projects.(5) Contemporary Governmental Decentralization Efforts As a consequence of the age-old problems of high centralization and lack of citizens' participation in governance that partly resulted from the lack of a meaningful ED-budgeting process, disparity in the provision of socio-economic infrastructure between urban and rural dwellers was exacerbated. Therefore, in 1983, the country's military regime of Jerry Rawlings initiated the process of statutorily empowering the Ministry of Local Government to embark on programs to decentralize the country's public decisionmaking process, especially as it relates to budgeting for ED purposes. The measure purports to directly involve local communities in decisions affecting them, and, thus, improve overall public administration and financial administration at the grassroots level. …