CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
1.0 INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Ghana, formerly known as Gold Coast, is a country situated in West Africa and was the first place in sub-Saharan Africa where Europeans arrived to trade - first in gold and later in slaves. It was also the first black African nation south of the Sahara to achieve independence from a colonial power, Britain on 6th March, 1957.
Ghana is a rectangular-shaped country bordered to the north by Burkina Faso, the east by Togo, the south by the Atlantic Ocean and the west by Côte d’Ivoire covering a land mass of 238,533 sq km (92,098 sq miles). Its current estimated population is 23.9 million (UN, 2008). The current 4th Republican Constitutional multi-party democracy was started in 1992 and since that time Ghana has been able to conduct five successful national elections.
In African political and administrative history, decentralisation is not new. From the colonial period until the third quarter of the 20th century, decentralizations prevailed in the form of deconcentration almost without exemption.
1.2 BRIEF OVERVIEW OF DECENTRALIZATION IN GHANA
The history of decentralization and local government in Ghana is traced back to the British colonial rule in the then Gold Coast, (Ghana) between 1878 and 1951 through the indirect rule. During this era the British colonial Administration governed indirectly through the existing chieftaincy institution, by constituting the chiefs and their elders in a particular district as the local authority, with powers “to establish treasuries, appoint staff and perform local government functions” (Nkrumah 2000: 55).
As the first country in the sub-Saharan Africa to gain independence in 1957, successive governments in Ghana have searched for a vibrant local government system to support the country’s development. HoweverThe Assignment is provided by UK Assignment http://www.szdhsjt.com , the most comprehensive and ambitious local government policy was initiated by the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) military regime in 1988, the Local Government Law (PNDC law 207), through which the then 65 local authorities were reviewed and restructured into 110 district assemblies. In 1983, Rawlings’ PNDC government announced a policy of administrative decentralisation of central government ministries, together with the establishment of People’s Defence Committees (PDCs) in each town and village.
The PDCs, made up of local PNDC activists as self-identified defenders of the ‘revolution’, effectively took over local government responsibilities, though often restricted to mobilising the implementation of local self-help projects (Nkrumah 2000: 58). The rationale for the local government reform as stated by the PNDC regime was to transfer functions, powers, means and competences from the central government to the local government, and to establish a forum at the local level where a team of development agents, representatives of the people and other agencies could discuss the development problems of the district and/or area and their underlying causative factors. On an ideological level decentralization was expected to support democratic participatory governance, improve service delivery and also lead to a rapid socio-economic development (Pinkney 1997, cited in Map Consult 2002: 35). |
