Enhancing Public Service Delivery Through Decentralization In Ghana:a Case Study Of Bosomtwe District

In 1988,Ghana reformed its decentralization policy by introducing the assembly system of local governance with the hope of deepening participatory democracy,development and the effective delivery of public services including the provision of water and sanitation.However,three decades of decentralization practices amidst the introduction of various strategies,programmes,and projects,the reform has not succeeded in achieving the goals.In fact,it has been revealed that between 2002 and 2012 alone,Ghana developed as many as 109 policies,strategies,and guidelines for sanitation related issues.However,in 2015 the World Health Organization(WHO)and United Nations International Children's Educational Fund(UNICEF)rated the country as the 7th dirtiest country in the world while less than 65 percent of Ghanaians have access to potable water.Focusing on the Bosomtwe District in a single-case study approach since the Assemblies in Ghana are confronted by similar challenges when it comes to the provision of basic public services,the study explored the reasons for the failure of decentralized governance to enhance effective delivery of basic public services and to find the solution.For triangulation,complementarity,and expansion,and for extracting the strengths and diminish the weaknesses in both the quantitative and qualitative research,the sequential mixed methods approach was adopted at both the data collection and data analysis stages of the study.At the data collection stage,a structured closed-ended survey questionnaire was used to measure the satisfaction of 297 sampled residents who were purposively selected on service dimensions and their perceptions on the existence of conditions which have to be fulfilled decentralization to succeed in improving service delivery in the district.The findings informed the design of the interview guide for officials,who are policy implementer at the district.The findings from the interview were then integrated with the quantitative analysis to provide a rich cross-fertilization of ideas and corroboration.The study drew lessons from the experiences of other jurisdictions and reviewed more than 200 related literature from home and abroad.Provisions in the Constitution and various legislation adopted to strengthen decentralization in Ghana as well as reports and documents from Bosomtwe District were analysed.Then the conceptual framework which serves as the intervening variables linking decentralization on one hand and service delivery on the other in the study area was tested.The study revealed that a precondition for the implementation of the policy is the willingness to reorganize the structure of the state and to redistribute power and responsibilities in such a way that it can deliver services efficiently and effectively to the citizenry.As a mean towards desirable outcome(s),the policy can only be successful if all the stakeholders(central government,local government authority,and citizens)are capable and willing to play their roles effectively.The study found that decentralization has failed to enhance service delivery in the study area due mainly to the weak political commitment on the part of the central government to decentralized governance which manifests itself in unclear central-local government relationship,weak policy-making and implementation discretion,and inadequate supervision and financial support for local governments in the country.The local government authority has weak incentive to deliver more goods and services due to weak public demand,accountability,and competition.Again,the Assembly is constrained by inadequate local revenue mobilization,organizational capacity,and financial management.The study concluded that enhancing service delivery through decentralization is thus anchored on the integration of three conditions – legislative framework,organizational capacity and financial capacity – which interact with and depend on each other.For decentralization reform to achieve the intended policy output and outcomes,i.e.improved service delivery(ISD)it is not sufficient to strengthen only one of these components on its own,but as a system.More so,decentralization succeeds in an environment which guarantees the sub-components of the demand and supply side of governance which include political commitment and prioritization of service delivery,private sector participation,public financial management,and citizen participation in local decision-making in a bottom-up perspective.