The Impact of Bureaucracy on Public Service Delivery: A Study of Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly
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Date
2011
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Abstract
Kumasi has fast been growing into a big metropolis. Daily, it receives a very large number of people who come to transact businesses, attend workshops, conferences, seminars, funerals and other forms of functions. Businesses have rapidly sprang up over the last ten years, thereby bringing pressure on the few and available social amenities, as well as public service provided by the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA).
KMA is the local administrative authority mandated to provide services for accelerated development and does this through bureaucratic procedures outlined by Max Weber. However, its bureaucratic machineries rather than fuelling development programmes through public service delivery is said to have hindered the growth expected due to excessive bureaucratization of business processes, coupled with corruption.
This study was therefore to, identify bureaucratic challenges that the Assembly encounters in service delivery and the extent to which these challenges impact on services to the people of the metropolis. It is also to develop measures to minimise excessive bureaucracy in the working process of officials of the Assembly. It employed structured, unstructured and interviews questionnaires to solicit views from respondents about the impact of bureaucracy on service delivery.
The study revealed among others that even though there is a clear practice of division of labour, departments lack technical equipment to effectively coordinate their activities, thereby resulting in delays in meeting the expectation of clients. Also, there was an overwhelming agreement to the fact that the Assembly’s low productivity, due to excessive bureaucracy could negatively impact on the performance of the central government. The study concluded by recommending that KMA should be made to go through bureaucratic reforms and offer its staff regular training programmes on customer care and satisfaction. It is also to provide adequate offices to enhance service delivery.
Description
A Thesis submitted to the Institute of Distance Learning, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Commonwealth Executive Masters in Public Administration,