The new Charter System in Ghana: the ‘holy grail’ of public service delivery?

Abstract

Public services delivery has been at the forefront of public sector reforms in many countries throughout the past three decades. Invariably, the desire is to do more with less, empower citizens, enhance transparency, and hold public servants accountable. Many countries have therefore developed a number of service delivery mechanisms over the years to achieve this objective. A good example is the Citizen’s Charter System. First developed in the United Kingdom, the idea quickly spread to other developed countries and, more recently, to some developing countries as well. Ghana has followed the lead taken by these countries by developing its own Citizen’s Charter, which is believed to be the ‘holy grail’ of service delivery in the public sector. The article attempts to examine the Citizen’s Charter, evaluate its rationale, and any challenges that may be faced in its implementation. It argues that there are a number of constraints, which the government should have addressed before establishing the Charter. The government’s failure to address these challenges, it is argued, will significantly affect the success of the program.

Points for practitioners

In the last few decades, governments in both developed and developing countries have been searching for better delivery mechanisms for public services. One such mechanism is the Citizen’s Charter, which has become popular in the developed world as a means of achieving efficient, effective, and accountable service delivery. More recently, it has also become popular in some developing countries. The implementation of a Citizen’s Charter requires a solid understanding of the capacity of a state’s public sector; however, in many developing countries, this sector is characteristically weak. It is important, therefore, for practitioners to understand the limits of the public sector in any given state, and the barrier it may pose to the successful implementation of service delivery mechanisms.