African public services: Challenges and a profile for the future African association for public administration and management (AAPAM) Vikas Publishing house pvt Ltd., New Delhi, 1984, xxvii & 252 pp., index
| Date | 01 April 1990 |
| Published date | 01 April 1990 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/pad.4230100215 |
| Author | Michael Yaffey |
246
Book
reviews
AFRICAN PUBLIC SERVICES: CHALLENGES AND A PROFILE FOR THE FUTURE
African Association for Public Administration and Management (AAPAM)
Vikas Publishing House
PVT
Ltd., New Delhi, 1984, xxvii
&
252
pp., index.
According to AAPAM, what civil servants in Africa want is to be able to serve the public
honestly and impartially, by loyally carrying out and supporting the directives
of
an executive
government, in the pursuit
of
national goals.
This presupposes that the executive is itself dedicated to the service
of
the public, and that
national goals exist and are purposively pursued, rather than the selfish goals
of
the executive
or
of
any other class or section. Secondly, it requires certain measures to improve ability,
organization, morale and motivation within the public service itself. This book addresses both
topics but mainly the latter.
The first paper (C.H.M. Barlow) criticizes the lack
of
revision to constitutions, which before
independence were basically law-and-order constitutions, to address development objectives.
To this day, says Barlow, most African States have obsolete structures, domineering rather
than service orientated, coercive rather than persuasive or participative.
M.A. Bentil’s paper gives an interesting account
of
attempts at reform (coupled with Africani-
zation) in Sudan, Ghana,Tanzania, Nigeria, and Kenya. The impression given is that there have
been fire-fighting rather than systematic reforms, whereas a civil service management should
be able to restructure itself pro-actively.
The UNECA Secretariat, in a paper which treats the need for nation-building and national
integration as axiomatic, calls for public servants to act as political educators
of
the masses, and
to contribute to policy-making by central ‘think-tanks’ for policy analysis, even if possible on
a Pan-African basis.
Following the 1979 conference, additional research-based papers were commissioned and
included in the book. Chapter six discusses methods
of
organizing the centre. Should the
Cabinet Secretary be head of the Civil Service? How can Development Planning co-exist with
Finance? Has the French system anything to recommend it? Two recommendations endorsed
by discussants were: (a) establishment
of
central office to monitor project implementation, as
in Malaysia; and (b) use of task force staff to shake up the ‘fixed duties’ thinking
of
ministries’
structures and ‘castes’ within ministries.
Chapter seven discusses several forms
of
decentralization, and concludes that African coun-
tries ‘should only allow as much decentralization as the fragile state
of
their national unity will
allow’. Accordingly it recommends ‘the integrated administrative system coupled with a
development committee system’.
Chapters 10 and
11
stem chiefly from Ghanaian experience, and cover strategy-making for
administrative reform coupled with promoting more responsible conduct by administrators.
They call for task forces to strengthen financial administration, supply management, and public
policy analysis. These two incisive and important essays draw on the work
of
K.A. Owusu-
Ansah, first published in 1974.
‘Public welfare and personal responsibility must be defined jointly out
of
the public
philosophy and law, as one understands those, and out
of
one’s personal concept of values.
These, along with knowledge of prevailing administrative values, are what the bureaucrat
takes with him into each decision.’
That conclusion is modified, however, in an appendix: ‘The administrator should be guided
by the
public interest,
defined to mean a normative standard which helps the official achieve a
working compromise between the competing claims of various group interests without
sacrificing the interests
of
the inarticulate unorganized majority and without losing sight
of
the
residual long-range
interests ofthe state’.
(My italics.)
In the several years which it took to bring this book to fruition-a book aiming to look at
the challenges
of
the 1980s-perceptions as to the nature
of
government have shifted. But
AAPAM, lacking any theory
of
state, attempts to construct for the whole of Africa a
professional ethic that says,
support the Government in order to serve the people.
This is the
thrust of the Declaration on Ideals (Appendix2). It is seen most strongly in the UNECA paper.
Owusu-Ansah had seen a high level
of
personal morality operating in a theatre of competing
interests and complex rules; but the discussion on his paper reverts
to
the axiomatic ‘interests
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