K.B Asante: Has the Civil Service any essential role in governance?

K.B Asante Opinion May - 18 - 2015 , 08:16

I belong to the old school and I do not pretend to fully understand all that is happening today. Now and again I go to the past to throw light on what is happening today.

The other day I visited President Nkrumah’s novel and famous Dawn Broadcast on April 8, 1961. It revealed problems which were similar to those of today and how he tried to deal with them.

One of them was the role and practices of the civil service. President Nkrumah said in the Dawn Broadcast :

“It amazes me that up to the present many civil servants do not realise that we are living in a revolutionary era. This Ghana, which has lost so much time serving colonial masters, cannot afford to be tied down to archaic, snail-pace methods of work which distract expeditious progress. We have lost so much time that we need to do in 10 years what has taken others 100 years to accomplish.

Civil servants, therefore, must develop a new orientation, a sense of mission and urgency to enable them to eliminate all tendencies towards red-tapism, bureaucracy and waste. Civil servants must use their initiative to make the Civil Service an effective instrument in the rapid development of Ghana.”

General Orders

Kwame Nkrumah believed the Civil Service to be a major instrument for development. He was, therefore, incensed by the lackadaisical and indifferent attitudes of many. Some of his ministers and political aides were, however, more interested in covering their relatively inferior education by the exercise of arbitrary authority.

Many blamed the Civil Service General Orders (G.O.) for the slow and indifferent behaviour of the officials. President Nkrumah, therefore, established a committee to revise the “General Orders” (G.O.).

I was secretary of two committees which worked on the revision of the Civil Service General Orders. Most of the big guns attended the first meeting.

Fewer still were present at the second meeting. There was no quorum for the third. The committees died from indifference of the major critics, mainly ministers.

Meanwhile, some of us civil servants vigorously enforced General Orders.

For example, I sanctioned a senior officer in my Protocol Section who applied to go on leave when President Nasser was to visit Ghana. G.O. expected leave to be applied for and granted in accordance with the exigencies of the service. Under the circumstances, it was wrong for a senior protocol officer to apply for leave because of the upcoming visit. Under President Nkrumah’s leadership, many civil servants tried to expand their role and develop a sense of mission towards the rapid development of Ghana.

Thus in the old days, the principal secretary of the ministry of interior which, like the Home Office in Britain, had some oversight over the Police, would intervene over the Daily Graphic story of Wednesday, May 13, “Court Discharges Rape Suspect”.

President Nkrumah was likely to ask for an explanation on hearing or reading about the case.

The principal secretary was expected to know that defilement of a 14-year-old was a crime against the state and in colonial days, the prosecution was in the name of the Queen. No relation, sister or mother could cause the case to be dropped.

The police are now better staffed and resourced to handle such matters without prodding from the principal secretary.

Foreign service rule

There were numerous criticisms of the Civil Service in the early days but Kwame Nkrumah, who was himself a critic, encouraged officials to believe that they were part of a team for rapid national development through good governance.

Therefore when in the Dawn Broadcast he declared that foreign service officers should not take their children over five years old abroad, I did not so direct in the new rules I enacted. I believed that government could not deprive parents of the fundamental human right to be with their children if they so desired.

The rule, if applied as the President said, would be unpopular and invite international criticism. As I believed in the role expected of the civil servant, the rule I made was simply that government would not pay for the passage of children over five years old.

Strange enough, some colleagues criticised me for going against the directive of the President. I ignored them and so did the President.

The situation is different in some countries such as the United States but I could not see how a party which won an election in Ghana could settle down immediately to run the administration effectively with party men and women, however well-educated, without the active involvement and support of experienced civil servants.

Party leaders with little confidence suspect the loyalty of good, confident civil servants and fall prey to incompetent officials who claim to be party loyalists.

But loyalty to the party is best expressed not by proclamation but by knowledge of party policy and ways of its implementation.

This loyalty is firm if underpinned by understanding and promotion of the national interest.

Party leaders should, therefore, naturally share a common mission with the civil service in the good governance and rapid development of Ghana.