Published in: Technical Paper

SIX DECADES OF THE PUBLIC SECTOR IN GHANA: ISSUES AND PROSPECTS

Author ideg

Published on: February 3, 2019

The public sector in Ghana has attracted concern and interest among politicians, citizens, public servants, and development partners (DPs) during the past six decades of independence since 1957. This is because it is clear from the literature that no country can make any meaningful progress towards developmental governance capacity without a professional, meritocratic, and effective public service capable of delivering value-for-money
services as the experience of the Asian developmental states has shown. The public-sector designs and implements policies and programs that aim to fulfill the government’s broad economic and social objectives. Specifically, it performs four functions, (i) making economic and social policies; (ii) designing and implementing public programmes; (iii) raising revenue; and (iv) managing accountability. In short, the public sector delivers services and produces goods to citizens, organizations, or other levels of government. It is a Herculean task to assess the performance of the
public sector in Ghana during the past sixty years in this paper. This notwithstanding, the paper examines some of the key recurring or burning themes or issues which have been associated with the public sector during these six decades. ideg-newsletter-lgr00119