CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
In private-sector business environment, a customer will continue to purchase and consume a given product or service depending on the level of satisfaction derived from such a product and affordability in terms of price. Thus, maintaining high quality in products or services is an essential factor for the survival and growth of both public and private sector organisations.
Organisations all over the world are faced with the challenges of customer satisfaction and retention, which necessitate the application of series of management principles in order to remain in business. The need for quality service delivery appears to have been appreciated by businesses in the private sector. However, their counterparts in the public sector are not perturbed by the quality of services delivered and have for ages, remained unchanged, probably due to the fact that, public-sector organisations do not normally face the threat of competition by rivals providing similar services. This attitude gives bureaucracy a bad name, as evidenced by poor services offered by many of these public institutions. In order to win public confidence and make expected socioeconomic gains, governments have introduced administrative reforms in the public/ civil services.
Bureaucracy is a type of formal administration with the characteristics of division of labour, rules and regulation, hierarchy of authority, impersonality of social relationships and technical competence, etc. The essence of bureaucracy is to enable large organisations to be managed, to achieve efficiency and be more accountable to the people. In other words, bureaucracy is the coordination of organisational activities for effective, efficient and economical provision of services by public and private organisations.
Max Weber refers to bureaucracy as the ideal and rational type of administration useful for achievement of positive results. He however notes the dysfunctions of bureaucracy due to excessive application of its guiding principles by office holders. Indeed excessive bureaucracy negatively impacts on social and economic development especially in poor countries. Merton (1957) mentions that excessive bureaucracy makes public organizations more arthritic and self-serving, less able to achieve their core missions, and less responsive to service users are; nepotism. It is characterised by red tapeism, excessive paper work, fear of innovation, poor customer service, duplication of working procedures, strict adherence to procedures, weak management practices, low moral, etc.
In order to survive the challenges posed in a highly competitive environment, many businesses, especially private organisations have shifted focus and are de-
bureaucratising their administrative processes for better service delivery.
For any country to develop, it is very imperative for its government to provide goods and services that the private sector does not usually venture into, especially water, sanitation, waste disposal, road, health, housing, education, electricity, etc. These services, according to World Bank Report (1997), are usually those that the private sector does not want to provide or those that people cannot afford the price at the given market value (Oyelaran-Oyeyinka, 2006).
When public institutions fail to meet the expectations of consumers in service delivery, the ripple effects result in grave consequences on political, social and economic growth of a state. According to Private Enterprise Foundation (PEF) (2008), the quality of utility service delivered to the private sector is generally poor and this results increasingly in businesses incurring huge unplanned costs.
Public services as referred to by PEF are water, electricity, waste management, health, housing, business registration and road networks. Further to this, making sure they reach the people and places they are intended to for social and economic growth. However, issues that resurrect public displeasure are the manner in which these services are delivered by public institutions concerned. Complaints from clients/consumers are that public officials are not responsive and mishandle businesses and people who approach them for services.
In Ghana for instance, it is very disappointing seeking the supply of water and electricity for domestic or industrial use. Consumers have to go through numerous bureaucratic channels before approval is given and in most cases, corrupt officials demand facilitation fees to hasten processes. Passport acquisition, registration of lands, law enforcement and judicial processes, health services, investment promotion, business registration, salary and pension processes have all been couched in cumbersome procedures that leave clients frustrated in their quest for services. In some cases, consumers abandon pursuit of these services in midstream, due to delays and other forms of bureaucratic
insensitivities.
The bottlenecks associated with service delivery have made bureaucracy very unpopular to the people, because excessive bureaucracy inhibits productivity and contributes to loss of large revenues to the government. The PEF emphasized that in spite of the ongoing public sector reforms, including the issuing of service charters by public sector agencies; the quality of public service delivery remains unsatisfactory, being very bureaucratic, cumbersome and open to petty corruption.
The recent increase in electricity and water rates by Public Utility Regulatory Commission (PURC) was fiercely resisted by businesses, labour unions and the general public, with reasons that service delivery by these service providers does not merit the increments. Thus they (consumers) can expect a high level of satisfaction in products or services provided by public organisations. .
1.2 Statement of the problem
As the second largest city in Ghana, Kumasi is the hub of multi-ethnic settlement and nationals from other countries are engaged in diverse economic activities that thrive on services available in the metropolis. The increasing numbers of private businesses, coupled with well-established industries, required that the Metropolitan Assembly should provide services that are fast, timely and affordable. To provide services that are timely, fast and affordable, local authorities have to do away with rigid administrative practices.
Wise et al (1993) quoting March & Olsen (1989), state that demands for institutional reform suggest that public bureaucracies are too complex, centralized and rigid, as well as too little oriented toward the needs of citizens. This further suggests that a time has come for local authorities to reform their bureaucracy in service delivery.
According to Sarji, (1996), the primacy of the customer of public service dictates that the Civil Service provides services that are responsive to the needs of its primary customer and the public. The standards of service should be stipulated in line with customer expectations for efficient, fast and friendly services. Consumer concerns are for reliability, credibility, accessibility and timelines in service delivery (PSM, 2003).
The KMA is the pivot of public service delivery in the Kumasi metropolis. It is the basic unit of public administration. It is established as a monolithic structure, assigned the responsibility of maintaining law and order, public security and safety, provision of safe and clean environment and development administration support needed for economic take-off and creating wealth in the metropolis. It is the responsibility of the
KMA to provide services such as registration of births, marriages, divorces and deaths. It issues licences, registers businesses and building permits to estate developers. Its consumers consist of;
i. investors, ii. NGOs,
iii. estate developers, iv. corporate bodies like banks, insurance companies, etc
v. traders and others engaged in commerce vi. churches and other religious bodies vii. individuals, landlords and tenants viii. Government organisations and institutions such as ECG, SSNIT, IRS, VAT
SERVICE, etc which operate in the metropolis.
As an ideal institution for providing public services, KMA‟s quality of services has been characterized by numerous administrative procedures that do not project the ideals of a responsive administration. Administrative lapses in the Assembly can be traced to excessive application of rules, regulations, procedures, methods, stringent policies and decisions, poor attitude towards work, bribery and corruption. Administrative structures, rules and regulations that are to be implemented to make public service meet client satisfaction are procedurally oriented, inflexible, and apathetic to the needs of service consumers. It services, consumers have time and again began to question the effectiveness of KMA‟s bureaucracy. According to PEF report (2008), government payments go through as many as 13 steps at the minimum, involving several different officials acting in different capacities. Payment procedures tend to be rather unintelligible, non-transparent, unpredictable, cumbersome and full of excessive delays.
Excessive bureaucratic practices; are seen in the following:
- delay of clients and waste clients‟ precious time and effort;
- frustration of clients in their desire to invest;
- payment of bribes or gifts or tips;
- abandonment of service half stream;
- provision of inadequate, incorrect and inefficient service;
- discrimination of clients in service delivery;
Almere Gemeente (2005) observed that obtaining building permit from the KMA takes far too long, as documents and files need to go through the whole organisation before the permit can be granted. This results in erection of unauthorized structures on waterways, the massive development of slums, limited supply of social amenities, increase in crime and other social vices, bribery and corruption, lack of faith in the
Assembly and the government, low revenue generation, etc.
The issue that is of much concern to this study is that public service delivery in KMA has become very bureaucratic to the extent that consumers of public services in the Assembly have become frustrated. Consequently some useful investments in the metropolis are abandoned or suspended. Job creation has slowed down and, unemployment and under-employment are on the increase leading to all forms of social vices and under-development.