Decentralisation process slow — Civil society

Two decades after the implementation of the decentralisation process, civil society groups have observed that progress has been very slow, hampering the delivery of good governance at the grassroot level.

Though some successes have been chalked in the last two decades, representatives of civil society organisations attending a two-day capacity building programme in Accra on decentralisation, local governance and social accountability in Ghana, say more needs to be done.

The programme was organised by the Social Accountability Platform.

They noted that while decentralisation created room for the creation of assemblies and administrative machinery at the grass-roots level, and ensured the accountability of the local government system to the citizenry, not much had been achieved in this regard.

Addressing the opening session of the workshop, Dr Esther Ofei-Aboagye, Director of the Institute of Local Government Studies, stated that the formulation of the new decentralisation policy framework and action plan in 2010, outlined an extensive agenda to accelerate and deepen the decentralisation process.

20 years of decentralisation

She opined that “twenty years of decentralisation experience would suggest that we did have a long way to go in ensuring citizen’s participation in decisions that affected them,” yet there had been mixed results as far as making assemblies and local governance accessible to the ordinary Ghanaian.

Though she commended government for periodically reviewing indicators to measure the progress of decentralisation, Dr Ofei-Aboagye said the efforts were “only useful if the citizen, who is the recipient of government’s services, identifies with the results.”

She urged civil society groups to play their role by demanding accountability from local government officials and also educating the public to demand good governance. “It is important that citizens express an interest in how power and resources are used by those they have mandated to do so on their behalf.”

Call on civil societies

Mr Edward Adu Aboagye, Manager of the Social Accountability Platform, admonished civil societies working in local governance to abreast themselves of the content of the Ghana National Decentralisation Policy Framework and Action Plan which sought to accelerate decentralisation in Ghana.

The object of the framework, he said, was to promote local democracy, participation and accountability through strong and more viable stakeholder involvement in local governance.

Gaps

A lecturer at the Institute of Local Governance Studies, Mr Felix Agyei Amakye, said  it was civil societies’ role to hold local authorities accountable through the use of tools such as public expenditure tracking surveys, social audits, election watch, monitoring of performance of public agencies and the use of citizen’s report cards.

“Yet there have been gabs in the social accountability mechanism. There has been over concentration on the supply side and this has made it possible for governance to fail in minimising corruption and improving access to quality public services for poor communities, ” he said.

By Emelia Ennin Abbey/Daily Graphic/Ghana