Abstract:
The need for an improved public sector with bureaucrats to provide efficient services
to the citizens, informed the adoption of the citizens charter policies in Ghana in
October, 2007. The policy aimed at reinventing public service delivery in the country.
Since its inception, numerous studies have been conducted to establish its
implementation successes and failures in the health sector. However, the extant
literature has little empirical findings on its impacts on the services of other public
agencies. This current study sought to fill the gap by investigating the impact of the
citizens charter programme on social accountability in terms of voice, answerability
and enforceability in the service delivery of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing
Authority (DVLA) and the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA). The study was
premised on the pragmatists research paradigm, using the concurrent mixed-method
design to collect both quantitative and qualitative data from 219 sampled respondents
and 10 expert informants respectively. The study established that the introduction of
the citizens charter programme has had minimal impact on social accountability in the
public service agencies. This was expounded with the assertion that the voice of the
clients/citizens have been systematically curtailed through the limited level of
involvement granted them during the crafting, implementation and evaluation of the
service charters. The study again revealed that, the citizens charter programme
currently has no legislative backings in Ghana, neither is there any government
initiative towards institutionalising the programme in the public service agencies.
Nonetheless, the citizens charter programme has improved upon the standards of
service delivery and citizens’ access to information. The study thereby concludes that
the citizens charter programme in its current implementation state, is more of an
administrative rhetoric than serving as a mechanism to make service providers
responsive and accountable to the citizens. The findings contribute to knowledge in
the extant literature on public sector reforms implementation. Since the enforceability
of the citizens charter programme was found to be poor, the study recommends that
the Public Sector Reform Secretariat under the Office of the President should draft a
‘Citizents Charter Bill’ to be passed by the parliament to give it a legal backing.
Again, the Office of the Head of Civil Service in collaboration with the Public Service
Commission should institute a ‘Charter Mark System’ to help rate public service
agencies on their adherence to the tenets of the citizens charter programme.
Description:
A Thesis in the Department of Political Science Education,
Faculty of Social Sciences, submitted to the School of
Graduate Studies in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the award of the degree of
Master of Philosophy
(Political Science)
in the University of Education, Winneba.
