The New Citizens Charter and the Lack of Consultation and Public Participation in Policy Making- A Rejoinder

Probably under pressure to deliver the vision of the Millenium Development Goals (MDG) it appears the gulf between the political rhetoric and peoples experiences of public services in Ghana have now grown too wide to be ignored, and it looks like there is now an appetite for new thought hence the New Citizens Charrter. I am just hoping the government is truly open to new ideas.

With reference to several articles I have posted on this plat form about this very issue, I have always held on to the principle that the state must ensure citizens got access to good public services as of RIGHT and not contingent on the kindness of some faceless bureaucrat in the ministries, departments or agencies because of the importance it plays in facilitating socio-economic development. Having been a victim of bad public service delivery for many years, and having watched the institutional effectiveness of our public service institutions decline to unacceptable depths, I?d like to say it?s been sobering to hear the President and his Minister for Public Sector Reforms come up with this new policy of the Citizens Charter to salvage the situation and hopefully to address underperformance issues and give all of us a better deal.

I am thrilled but at the same time troubled. I am thrilled because at long last efforts are going to be made to deal with the serious deficits at these institutions, right down from may be the Police Service to the Customs Organisation and Local Authorities e.t.c. At the same time I am troubled about the way and manner the government is going about this whole exercise. The even amazing thing is how the whole policy has evolved without public participation.

My question is where did the policy suddenly emerge from and why has there been no public consultation and participation in formulating this policy? Or was this widely publicised and I never heard of it ? I am surprised that just like with previous Government policies which have gone bad, there has been no local public debate about this policy and how it should be monitored and regulated to ensure its sustainability, given our unique circumstances and environment. It seems like it has just been dropped on us from above out of no where and the same faceless bureaucrats have been asked to start implementing it wholesale with immediate effect. As a Practitioner I am stunned with astonishment.

If we are going to implement a very important initiative like this why don?t we do it properly like we are wishing to join the globalised world and doing things properly like they do ? How do we tailor the policy to our unique circumstances and needs for long term sustainability if we don?t seek the views of the public who have a much better experience of the failings of all these public sector institutions ? I am just hoping they have not just copied or lifted something out of a manual and trying to implement it as policy wholesale in Ghana. ? It?s looking like ?another policy on the hoof? to me. If that is the case I doubt the intended outcome of improving the efficiency, responsiveness, and accountability, of the public service sector will be sustainable.

I am aware that the Ghana Leadership Union (GLU), an NGO of Ghanaians in the diaspora, have expressed concerns about not making the people in the street the champions of this strategy, according to their article publish on Ghana web on 3rd November 2007, and I share those concerns. We must start understanding that tackling the policy challenges of the future requires the public to be at the heart of service design and decision making if sustainability is to be achieved. Public participation is associated with the importance of involving wider groups of the local population and other stakeholders in design and decisions on new policies that ultimately affects them. I think its? a shame that the policy has been put together without PUBLIC PARTICIPATION something that could have made a real difference to its effectiveness. Look, in the public sector there is a rich experience across the world and if the Minister does not know, someone should let him understand that in today?s modern world, public participation reflects good practice in policy formulation, period. The public represents a wide variety of interests which will bring together different view points on an issue. It has been proven many times over that to achieve sustainability in good policy formulation citizens must be given the opportunity to actively participate in shaping policies that affect their lives. Let the Minister and his staff also understand that public participation in policy making enhances efficiency in implementation and also contributes to and enhances our democratic system of government. They may have had insights on how to effectively reform the services and will be able to channel information based on their practical experiences and make good suggestions on how to reduce the corrupt practices that have overwhelmed the sector. Above all the public when consulted will act as watchdogs and can monitor whether the charter provisions are being complied with in terms of fighting corrupt practices and exposing malfeasance in our public sector organisations.

Now It appears this new policy has been drawn up by the same staff who have run down the public sector services through their inactions and omissions. So how do they know what is best to rectify the rot ? I am not surprised the general thrust of the new Citizen?s Charter appears to be focused exclusively on the new proposed pay structure for public servants and electronic aspects of the exercise rather than focusing on customer service standards, a clear monitoring process, and how to measure public servants performance or redress service failures.

There are too many areas of weakness and capability issues in the current human resources elements of these institutions from the lowest levels to the very senior levels of management. Yes of course the issue of pay should be address but equally the charter should have involved the people I mean the hundreds of thousands of customers who are failed by the service at the local, regional and national levels on a daily basis, in developing and setting priorities. I am sure if given the opportunity the public might even highlight other important related standards of access to public services that are important to them, like, decent records and assets management , easy access to information , health and safety, and even sanitation facilities provision at these institutions, as some priority items for improvement under the charter. What a lot of people have not realised is that we have a big problem in the performance of our public service institutions like corrupt practices which are holding us back and you can only deal with these issues effectively if you involve the citizens.

In Ghana today, it is a fact that citizens are not sufficiently aware of the costs of corruption and the existence of tools and methods to curb the phenomenon. By the nature of our society citizens due to ignorance, do not make the link between some positive objectives they may have experienced for their personal life or professional activity for instance (access to good customer care within a reasonable period or access to quality healthcare) and the fight against corruption. So they don?t see how they could contribute towards the minimisation and eventual eradication of these practices. For all you know, they might interpret anything positive that happens to them, if not as a sign of ? God?s Blessings? or ?Good fortune, they will interpret it as ? Divine Intervention?.

What we need to now understand is that taking part in decision making or discussing future policy can have a transformative effect on how people and citizens think about themselves and their role in society. A framework must be developed to provide opportunities for involvement for citizens in policy formulation to EMPOWER them to challenge all the negative ills overwhelming our society. The challenge for the executive and the ministers is how this is achieved? The answer is as simple as it?s obvious. It?s really simple to do. I hope these suggestions offer an alternative and useful insight into some of these aspects and how to provide opportunities for involvement for citizens in policy formulation like the Citizens Charter provisions which I think have not been thought through properly.

- First a draft of the policy should have been published as a consultation document setting out the key issues. - The general public and other interested organisations or stakeholders should have been invited to comment and contribute possible remedies to the issues they wish to fix quickly. - Citizens Advice Committees, Focus Groups and Workshops should have been set up from whom opinions can be canvassed on what should go into the charter and what should not go in there. - Probably a conference should have been organised at the end of the consultation period to sound out ideas whilst further developing them and talking through with stakeholders what issues you can or cannot take forward. - Through that the government would probably would be told that any meaningful Citizens Charter will not be put together in a few months and enforced with ?Immediate effect? as currently specified. The provisions would probably have ensured that funds are made available for research and development of services at various levels, local, regional and national, and implementation would include pilot schemes which would enable successful schemes to be backed and spread out nationally for long term sustainability.

It?s about time our governments understand that to ensure good equal access to public services we must define our own agenda based on local realities and contexts and communicate public service information to people in their own languages and in simple plain English. Everybody should be given the opportunity to express his or her views on important policies and these views should be taken into consideration in formulating and monitoring the policy. If the citizens and stakeholders are involved from the onset they will help enforce the provisions of the citizens charter to achieve its objectives.

Without these thoughts, talks about a Citizens Charter to improve public services delivery in Ghana will just look like posturing.