Literature on Rationale for Public Sector Reforms:

The literature on public sector reforms in Africa can be divided into three areas, namely, (i) those that deal with the rationale for public sector reforms; (ii) those that deal with the strategies deployed for public sector reform; and (iii) those that looked at the phases of the reforms.

The literature identifies the drivers for public sector reforms (PSRs). They include (a) inability by many governments to balance the budgets; (b) incapacity of governments to adequately respond to public demands; (c) the internationalization of many issues that previously were solely domestic; and (d) the over expansion of the scale of government and its intervention in all spheres of society, even where it has no competence and track record, leading to overload problems Cohen 1993; Levy and Kpun-deh 2004; Mutahaba 1989; Mutahaba, Baguma and Halfani 1993: Van de Walle and Ramachandran 2003; UNECA 2004: Rugumyamheto 2004; AfDB 2005). Attention to PSR has therefore emerged because the quality of the public sector – accountability, efficiency in service delivery, transparency, and so forth – correlates strongly with long-term growth and poverty reduction (Mukandala 2000; Van de Walle 2001; Mutahaba and Kiragu 2002; Ayee 2008). Indeed, inadequate state capacity is seen as the failure of the public sector to perform its functions (AfDB 2005). Accordingly, public sector reform addresses four problems constraining developmental progress in Africa, namely, (i) over-centralized

government; (ii) recurrent personnel costs that consume large amounts of scarce budgetary resources;

(iii) large budget deficits; and (iv) declining administrative capacity (Cohen 1993; Levy and Kpundeh 2004; Mutahaba 1989; Mutahaba, Baguma and Halfani 1993: UNECA 2004).

Some of the studies have either focused on public sector reforms under structural adjustment pro-grammes (SAPs) or specifically SAP-related public service reforms. Studies that focused on public sector reforms under SAP include the corporate works of the African Training Centre for Administra-tion and Development (CAFRAD) (1990), Balogun and Mutahaba (1991), and the individual works of Mutahaba (1989), Mukandala 1992; Adamolekun (1991), Kaul (1996), Nti (1996), Macgregor et.al.

(1998); Adamolekun and Kiragu 1999; Mukandala 2000; and Olowu (1999). These studies highlight the impact of SAPs on public sector institutions in general. They cover a variety of issues ranging from privatisation and deregulation, to decentralization and civil service reforms and problems confronting the public service in Africa such as serious human resource management issues of leadership, merit pay and related governance reforms, the appropriate strategy for mobilizing resources. They point out that these issues must be adequately addressed before African countries can make significant progress the public sector and in development.

CAFRAD’s work was the result of a seminar and was a pioneering one on the issue of the implications and the impact of SAPs on public administration structures and management. Some of the important issues raised in the CAFRAD work are set out below. First, public sector reforms in Africa resulted from serious economic crisis and were thus not ends in themselves but directed at supporting poli-cies for economic stabilization and adjustment; consequently these administrative reforms sometimes failed to answer the specific needs of African countries. Secondly, the central objectives of SAP-relat-ed administrative reforms were to rSAP-relat-educe cost and to increase the effectiveness of the public service.

Reduction in the size of the public service including the civil service as a requirement of SAP was based on the goal of reducing budget deficits and redressing financial imbalances. This contrasts with the extra demands which the implementation of SAPs imposed on the service in terms of producing voluminous information and data for monitoring the implementation of SAPs.

Most of the contributions in the volume edited by Balogun and Mutahaba (1991) dwell more on the effects of the economic crisis on public sector institutions rather than the impact of SAPs on these institutions. There is a distinction between the effects of the crisis, on the one hand, and the effects of adjustment, on the other. One would expect that any SAP-related administrative reforms would seek to redress some of the negative impacts of the crisis on the public services in general, and on the civil service in particular.

A few of the contributions in Balogun and Mutahaba (1991) however shed some light on the impact

improvement under adjustment programmes has included, inter alia, staff reduction, salary and wage reviews, the strengthening and the reorganization of key ministries and central agencies of some Af-rican countries such as the Gambia, Senegal, and Mali. Wamalwa, in the same volume, argues that SAPs have promoted cost-consciousness at all levels of the public administration system and have the potential to ensure merit-based employment and the rationalization of public administration in-stitutions such as the public and civil service. However, the concomitant restrictions on employment and the mass retrenchment of public personnel have adverse effects on the motivation, morale, and productivity of public personnel (Balogun and Mutahaba, 1991: 109-119).

Writing on administrative reforms in East Africa, Mutahaba (1989) has noted that much of the re-form efforts in Tanzania, Zambia and Kenya took place amidst complementary rere-forms in the socio-economic systems. In most of the cases administrative reform measures in these three countries were taken to facilitate socio-economic development objectives. In agreement with the CAFRAD (1990) study and the Nti (1991), Mutahaba forcefully argues that efforts at reform should not be concerned merely with rehabilitating the public service systems, but should aim at transforming and building viable systems that are capable of handling the shocks of independence and of economic crisis.

A few studies have emerged that have focused specifically on adjustment-related public sector re-forms. In this category, there is the work of De Merode (1992) for the United Nations (1992), Olowu (1999), Demongeot (1994), Macgregor (1998), Wescott (1999), Kaul (1996), Langseth, (1995). De Merode (1992) points out two sets of reasons that have been used to justify the reform of the public sector under the SAPs. The first is that most of the Africa public services were oversized and thus rep-resented a budgetary burden on the government, especially in the context of economic decline and increasing budget deficits. One obvious way of redressing the imbalance is to reduce the number of public servants and their cost, which is a prominent feature of SAPs.

The second set of reasons for SAP-related public sector reforms have to do with weak government capacities reflected in weak public sector capacities. These represent bottlenecks for both the im-mediate feasibility and the long-term sustainability of SAPs. The reform of the public service was therefore required for the effective implementation of structural adjustment. However, the works of the UNDESA (1992), Olowu (1999), Demongeot (1994), Macgregor (1998), Wescott (1999), Kaul (1996), Langseth, (1995) take a somewhat different position from that of De Merode. While recogniz-ing that public sector reforms are overdue in African countries, and pointrecogniz-ing out that some African public services are oversized, ineffective and inefficient, they doubt whether SAPs provide a basis for comprehensive administrative reforms in the public service. They particularly note that the emphasis on the reduction of the size of the public service and the cuts in cost, privatisation and deregulation would not necessarily improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the public service unless attention is focused on other aspects of public service management such as capacity building, service delivery,

aid mechanisms, change management processes, leadership commitment, sequencing, ministerial restructuring, decentralization, attitudinal changes, perception change and good governance.