Citizens Perception of Quality of Public Service Delivery in Ghana

In the last two decades, Ghana has engaged in economic reforms to promote development. At the forefront of these reforms is the implementation of the new public management agenda to revitalize government to improve efficiency... [ view full abstract ]

In the last two decades, Ghana has engaged in economic reforms to promote development. At the forefront of these reforms is the implementation of the new public management agenda to revitalize government to improve efficiency (Bennel, 1997; Adams and Mengistu, 2008). The results of studies conducted on these reforms however, have been ambiguous and consequently many authors point to experimental designs, for example, use of citizens’ perception to assess public service delivery (Bratton, 2013; Islam and Farazmand, 2008; Battaglio and Legge, 2009).
Conventional models of democratic accountability hinge on the ability ofcitizens to evaluate government performance accurately (Dahl, 1989). Yet there is little evidence on the degree to which citizen perceptions of the quality of government services’ correspond to publicly reported data on their actual performance. We advance this literature by analyzing citizens’ evaluations of performance of government service focusing on public education and the agricultural sector. In so doing,we make at least two contributions. First, by comparing perceptions ofgovernment performance to actual performance measured on a commonscale across jurisdictions, we fill a key gap in the literature on the determinants ofsatisfaction with public service delivery. Second, we assess the thesis that service delivery effects are sector specific by examining the differential impacts of public service delivery in the education and agricultural sectors.
Data is to be collected from three regions of the country (Greater Accra, Volta, and Brong Ahafo). With data on the treatment and control groups before and after the implementation of the programs, the impact can be measured using a double difference (DD) or difference in difference (DID) estimation technique. Finally, using probit /logit estimation techniques, we examine causality between the citizens’ perceptions and policy responsiveness in terms of the quality and quantity of service.