(LUSAKATIMES) Bringing the Government closer to the people

Bringing the Government closer to the people
By Mingeli Palata
December 30, 2008

A few days ago, I had the privilege of escorting a friend of mine to Kanyama compound, not so far away from the City center. The visit was an eye opener. As I navigated through the pot holes, ‘road dams’, I saw the poor infrastructures people call houses and kept on asking myself whether its life that is not fair or there is some element of irresponsibility in this sad state of affairs.

To say the least, Kanyama is not only an unplanned settlement but a breeding ground for poverty, failure and cholera. I couldn’t help but to think of the children at the clinic and schools. I kept on asking ‘where the MP for the area is?’ My colleague was quick to remind me that the MP has no capacity to bring development to a constituency what so ever, only the government has the power to bring about meaningful development.

But wait a minute, what about this word local government? Since that term has some sort of relation to ‘Government’, why can’t they do something about this? So I spent quite some time thinking of the ‘solution’ like my Asian based PR friend whose name must-not-be-mentioned-at-all-costs would put it.

The solution is quite simple actually; it lies in something called systems and policy. You may have come across this awfully long word, ‘Decentralization’. My enormously huge Webters’ lexicon tells me it has something to with delegating management control to specific organs, in this case it will mean allowing individual local councils to run the affairs of their respective territories with little interference from central government.

Government has an unnecessarily huge structure that creates a lot negative bureaucracy and is predisposed to abuse by selfish politicians. There are too many truths to this. For starters, simple common sense will tell you that a developmental paper can take years through the paper trail, approval processes, and committee briefings so much such that by the time it reaches the operational stage, its either there is a recession or there is an election - just like that a plan meets its death.

A centralized local government does not ensure checks and balances, and breeds corruption. Because the system is too big and a simple thing like putting drainage needs the consent of the minister,if not the President, the PS, the town clerk, council of counselors and lord know who else- its hard to have people accountable for their assigned deliverables.

There is no one to point a finger therefore the performance of our counselors and MPs cannot be effectively evaluated instead they will all throw the blame on central government.

The system is also prone to corruption; the Auditor Generals’ report is my witness. Notice how many millions of Kwachas get lost in the ‘paper trail’. Every now and then we hear plot squabbles; counselors or party cadres selling plots and in the long run messing up the good plans made by our civil engineers. Now because the system is so huge, this cannot be investigated, it’s left unchecked and consequently our city is in a mess, no roads, shanty compounds, the list is dreadful.

I propose that we review the system of governance to ensure that the local government is given full administrative authority to direct development and enforce sanity in our various locations. This system should ensure that the council collects revenue in form of taxes and levy’s from community households and businesses, and use it to effectively usher in meaningful change in the way communities are governed. Under this new system the responsibilities of the town clerk and the Mayor should be reviewed to ensure that both offices are relevant to society, as opposed to reducing the Mayor to wearing ‘bling’ and attending fundraising dinner dances.

Lets do what so ever is required to legislate this ‘hands-on’ system of governance which by the way is practiced by affluent countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States of America.You will find that in the US for instance, individual states even go to the extent of making laws that are specific that particular state. I am of the view that this system is best suited to actualize real and progressive change in our lives and will bring Government closer to the people.