Abstract:
Ghana has been touted as a beacon of democracy, good governance, and a story of hope for Africa and other developing nations in the world. This is largely due to the successes it has chalked in consolidating its democracy, through successful and successive elections since 1992. However, Ghana appears not to have a strong, effective, and efficient public sector. Whereas there is no single factor that has compromised the quality and effectiveness of the public sector, one cannot disregard politicisation as one of the contributory factors. The study sought to examine why the appointment of heads of public institutions is politicised and the long-term implications in Ghana’s fourth republic. The study adopted an exploratory approach in qualitative research and primary data was augmented into relevant secondary data. It sampled eighteen (18) respondents through face-to-face interviews using semi-structured interview guides on respondents from the field of Academia, Think tanks/CSOs and the Public Service. Empirically the study found out that politicisation of the appointment of senior bureaucrats has been around for a long time and the causal factors are colonial legacy, trust and loyalty, party support, clientelism, patronage, and cronyism. It was also found out that the practice has intensified in the fourth republic due to the Winner-Takes-All nature of the 1992 constitution, creation of “jobs for the boys”, campaign resources and loyalty, moneycracy associated with political campaigning, patronage, clientelism, and the involvement of bureaucrats into politics. Again, it was realized that politicisation has indirectly affected the mandate of most public sector organizations, stifle development, affects public sector reforms and has the tendency of injuring Ghana’s fledgling democracy. Participants believe that strengthening of existing laws will help curb this phenomenon. The study among other things recommended that incremental policies, bureaucratic autonomy and a review of the president’s power of appointment would help minimize politicisation in Ghana’s bureaucratic set-up.
