Bureaucratic Leadership and Public Sector Reforms in Developing Countries: The Ghanaian Case

Since the early 1980s, reforming the public sector to meet the developmental exigencies of Ghanaians has occupied the mind of every political party that has ruled the country. In spite of the overwhelming acceptance that... [ view full abstract ]

Since the early 1980s, reforming the public sector to meet the developmental exigencies of Ghanaians has occupied the mind of every political party that has ruled the country. In spite of the overwhelming acceptance that public sector capacity is low and that this continues to affect productivity, the numerous reforms undertaken have not yielded the desired results. Various explanations have been espoused for this failure. For instance, until recently, this failure of reforms was attributed to the lack of political commitment at the highest level, externally imposed reforms, lack of local ownership, the lack of participation by the leadership of the public service, and the lukewarm attitude of officials in the implementation of the reform. Others have also identified the approaches, particularly both the top-down and bottom-up approaches as accounting for the inability of the reforms to take strong hold in the country.
While we do not totally dismiss this logic, we believe that one neglected factor in all these explanations is the ‘lack’ of the role of administrative leadership in the reform process including the designing and implementation of the reforms. We believe that if reforms are to have any serious impact in changing the public sector by building its capacity for national development, then a serious engagement with administrative leadership is something that must not be ignored, and hence must be part and parcel of any reforms initiative. In short, administrative leaders should not be passive recipients of reform programs but must be active participants from the beginning of every reform initiative. Public (administrative) leaders must implement all reforms after the political leadership has identified what needs to be done. Even this identification must come from the administrative leaders since they manage the various agencies of the government and are also close to the people they are responsible for.
This paper will examine the role of administrative leadership in public sector reforms in Ghana. What has been the role of bureaucratic leaders in the public sector reforms in Ghana? What has been the impact of the role of administrative leadership or the lack thereof in Ghana’s reform process in the last three decades? The essence of this adventure emerges from the limited success that various reform programs continue to have on the public service in the country. It is understood that public sector reform is significantly about change management. If any change initiative is to be successful, then the role of change agents in the process must be well understood. In the reform process, administrative leaders are the change agents in view of the pivotal position they occupy in both the political and administrative systems.
The paper is qualitative in nature and is based on semi-structured interviews. The criterion sampling technique was adopted in order to sample public managers from some public sector organisations. In addition, some officials of the Public Services Commission and the Head of the Civil Service were also interviewed. Some academics were also interviewed.