The Zambian administrative reforms: An alternative view
| Author | B. C. Chikulo |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/pad.4230010108 |
| Published date | 01 January 1981 |
| Date | 01 January 1981 |
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND DEVELOPMENT,
Vol.
1,55-65
(1981)
The Zambian administrative reforms: an alternative view
B.
C.
CHIKULO
University
of
Zambia
SUMMARY
In
1968 administrative reforms were announced in Zambia which have been interpreted as
involving a commitment to decentralization. The announcement came against a
background
of
moves to strengthen party control over the bureaucracy, and a feature
of
the reforms was the reinforcement of this control. Subsequent developments have been
characterized by the establishment of greater control over governmental administration
in
provinces and districts by party political appointees and by closer control over local party
officials by party appointees from the centre. These developments have
not
been
accompanied by decentralization within ministries, and functional ministries retain control
over their field agents.
INTRODUCTION
Since the announcement of the Administrative Reforms
in
1968, (Kaunda, 1968,
pp.
23-25)
an active debate has been raging about whether or not there has been
any decentralization
in
effect or whether it is all just political rhetoric. Critiques
are
in
vogue lamenting the fact that there has been little decentralization in
reality. In their analyses the critics are exclusively concerned with the official
stated
goal of taking the government to the people to the exclusion
of
unstated
goals. As a consequence, although most critics have noted the increasing
centralism, none
of
them have attempted to explain the apparent contradiction
between such a trend and the President’s public espousal of participatory
democracy (Taylor, 1971; Working party to review the system of decentralized
administration, 1972; Decentralized Government, 1978). Two factors are
responsible for this shortcoming. First, the critics failure to see that after
independence political imperatives were the politicians’ primary concern. Indeed
in
most new states
it
has been shown that political dynamics are usually the
major factors influencing the direction of administrative reform rather than
those concerned
with
economic developments. Commenting on the same issue,
Professor Tordoff has observed that the most urgent problem which faced the
national political elite at independence was the problem of political regeneration
rather than economic development as such (Tordoff, 1968). Secondly,
in
most
writings, ‘decentralization’ is used synonymously with ‘administrative reform’.
Failure to distinguish between these two concepts has
in
some cases led to
superficial analyses of the primary intensions of the reforms.
Mr
B.
C. Chikulo is a Lecturer
in
the Department
of
Political and Administrative Studies, University
of
Zambia
0271-2075/81/010055-11$01
.OO
0
1981 by John Wiley
&
Sons,
Ltd.
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