Policy, Practice and Performance of Decentralization in Ghana

Ghana undertook a major decentralization reform in 1988 under a military government, with the enactment of Local Government Law 1988, PNDC Law 207. The packa,ge of reforms were also incorporated in the 1992, 4th Republican Constitution of Ghana when Ghana was ushered into democratic rule in 1992 led by NDC. In 1993, an Act of Parliament, Act 462, Local Government Act, 1993 was promulgated to operationalize the 'new' decentralization policy. This reform was intended to be a complete departure from the older decentralization policies that were known to have such problems as competition between the central government departments and the local governments, failure to perform functions assigned the local government units, chieftaincy disputes which adversely affected decision-making capacity of the local government units, inability of the local government units to generate adequate funds to support their activities, inadequate transfer of financial resources from the central government to the local government units, weak manpower of the local government units vitiated by nepotism in appointments; and lack of participation of the citizenry in their own development process due to stifling of local initiatives by the centralized system (Ayee, 1998)