Topic: ghana’s public administration systems.

Topic: Ghana’s Public Administration Systems. Public administration in the first place must be understood to be a multidimensional concept. In fact it’s a concept of different elements, elements from the social sciences, management etc… Borrowing from the definition, given by Rosenbloom from his book Understanding Public Management; Public Administration is the action part of government, the means by which the purposes and goals of government are realized. The key terms that need much emphasis to me in that definition are: the action part, government, and then means. Action part as given by Rosenbloom in this definition represents the projects, programs and policies which are carried out by government to achieve growth and developmental goals for a country or a state. Government as made mention of in the definition is the representatives of the state at a particular point in time. In other words it’s a transient entity which at any point in time represents a state. Means also talks of the mechanisms, medium, the platforms on/through which government’s action parts, such as programs, policies, projects are articulated to ensure that government purposes and goals are realized. Structures as in scalar chain – number of levels in the hierarchy from the ultimate authority to the lowest level in an organization — is not exempted from the means through which these goals are realized. Ghana as a state has its own Public Administration systems, emphatically focusing on its structures. The constitution of the fourth republic of Ghana (1992) defines the overall structure of the public Administrative systems in Ghana with the following: A president elected for a maximum tenure of two terms of four years per term. The president will also have to appoint a vice president who shall act in his absence; he will also appoint a council of ministers and a cabinet who shall advise the president on specific national and international issues, as well as a council of state to act as another advisory body. Ghana is divided into ten administrative regions; each region has a council, of which the president appoints members to serve that council. This premier structure is referred to as the Executive body with the president as the head. The next structure after the executive is the national parliament or Legislature. The main focus of this structure is law making. Ghana’s law making body is a unicameral parliament (single house). The parliament’s two hundred and thirty members are directly elected for a four year term with no term limits. The head of this structure is the Speaker of Parliament, assisted by the deputy speaker of parliament. An independent Judiciary is the next structure in Ghana’s public administration system’s structure after the legislature. In the first instance, Ghana’s legal codes are based on Britain’s. The judicial body consists of the superior of judicature comprising in an order of authority the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal and the High Court and Regional Tribunals. Followed at the lower tier are the Circuit Courts, Community Tribunals and Courts of the House of Chiefs. All judges are appointed by the president and approved by parliament. A judicial council monitors the performance of the judicial systems, along side the Ghana Bar Association which represents the interest of Ghanaian Lawyers. Heading this structure is the chief justice of Ghana. The next structure after the judiciary is a Local Government System. Ghana is divided into ten administrative regions. Each region is led by a Regional Executive, who is appointed by the president, with an elected number of Assemblies spread across all the geographic regions. This structure is led by regional coordinating councils, which in most of the time represents the interest of the central government, which is the same as the executive. The media, in times now is been referred to as the invisible hand of government. For that matter the media commission of Ghana happens to be the next structure after the Local government. A media commission that upholds freedom of the press, and ensures the maintenance of standards in objective reporting. The head of this structure is the National media Commissioner. Next after the media commission is the National Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice, which is headed by a commissioner appointed by the president. The main duties of this commission is to protect citizens form maladministration and/or injustices. A national Electoral commission also comes under the structure, headed by the Electoral commissioner, they are responsible to oversee free and fair elections by secrete ballot. The last but not the least I will consider, is an impartial and professional public and civil services of Ghana. The public services comprise agencies such as the police service, the education services, the health services, etc… this structure is headed by the Public Services Commissioner. This basically forms the core structures of the public administrative systems in the Republic of Ghana.