Ms Juliet Amoah, a Development Expert, has called for deliberate efforts from State actors to purge the civil and public services of political actors to enable them to effectively contribute to the development of the country.
In recent times, concerns have been raised by some social commentators and civil servants, including Dr Isaac Bampoe-Addo, Executive Secretary of the Civil and Local Government Staff Association of Ghana (CLOGSAG) about the infiltration of the Service by some political actors, who are usurping the powers of civil servants and denying them the chance to effectively deliver on their mandates.
The situation, according to many, had contributed to the poor service delivery as well as the bloating of the civil and public service wage bill.
Speaking in an interview with the media on the sidelines of the second edition of the “Thought Leaders Arena” over the weekend, Ms Amoah, who is also the Country Director for Emerging Public Leaders (EPL), a non-profit youth-focused Organisation, said Ghana must insulate its civil and public services and their technocrats to ensure that only well trained personnel were allowed into the Service.
“I think that for countries that have been successful and have successful civil services, it’s come about because they’ve been able to insulate their public service and insulate the technocrats, so that technocrats are trained to understand that you are experts, you’re not populist, you’re not there to look at a popularity contest or be likable, but you’re there to look at what resources do we have?
“How can we maximise the use of those resources? And what will it mean for the well being of the ordinary man?
“In Ghana, we have ways to go. As you say, there’s the infiltration, if you like, of the political class into this technical space, and as a people, we do need to sit and think about if do we need some kind of reform?
” Do we need some kind of renewed thinking about the way that our technocrats are treated, or the way that they themselves hold themselves up within the public spaces where we’ve put them?” She said.
The Thought Leaders Arena was held on the topic: “Does The Ghana Civil Service Need Reforms? Evaluating Past Successes, Failures, and The Way Forward”.
It was to provide a platform to allow youth voices, youth ideas, young people’s thoughts and values to be heard at decision making tables.
Sylvester Philip Adu-Gyamfi and Precious Nwachukwu argued in favour of reforms while Justice Naayemele and Godwin Kugblenu Makafui argued against any form of reform.
Launched in 2018, EPL is a two-year fellowship that equips high-achieving university graduates of Ghanaian nationality with transferable leadership skills to effect change into the public sector and beyond.
Ms Amoah said over the past five years, the Organisation had made significant progress, equipping young people with relevant skills to contribute to service delivery in both the civic and public services.
She said a number of EPL fellows had been posted to all 24 ministries and agencies in the country who were doing great work, including providing policy research for policymakers to take on and implement.
“We have seen young people who would ordinarily be posted to places where their full potential would not be realised to being people who are sharp and able to contribute to decision making within the public service and thus contributing to the way that government works in the way that government is delivering its services.
“So yes, we do see, progress isn’t at the level at which we were looking for it to be, but if it were, we would be out of business, so we’re still in the business of grooming young people and we see that we’re going to be doing that for a very long time,” the Development Expert, said.
On whether the Ghana Civil Service needed reforms, Sylvester Philip Adu-Gyamfi and Precious Nwachukwu, who argued in favour, said reforms were needed to make the Service better to meet the development needs of the country.
Key among their recommendations are establishment of strong institutions that would effect behavioral change in employees, better remuneration for workers to avoid experienced hands from leaving the Service and creation of conducive workplace environment for workers to thrive.
Justice Naayemele and Godwin Kugblenu Makafui believed that the previous reforms carried out 1967, 1974 and 1987 had not yielded the desired results and that , any attempts to carry out another reform would only bring more financial burden to the country.
Rather, they proposed, a “subtle revolution” where persons employed into the sector were well trained to cause the necessary change over time to get the Service to deliver on the mandate it was set up to do.
