Administrative Decentralization: The only best option for governing south Sudan
Jun. 01 Politics, Uncategorized 3 comments
BY: JUMA, SOUTH SUDAN, JUN/01/2013, SSN;
By the end of this article, you will concur with me that
administrative decentralization is the best system of governance that
South Sudan governance should implement fully. Let me give you brief
background of decentralization as a whole so that some of my readers
who are not well conversant with decentralization should be in a
better position to make a rationale decision concerning the type of
decentralization that their conscience can deem relevant to our
country.
A- Decentralization: is defined as the transfer of authority and
responsibility for public functions from the central government to
subordinate or quasi-independent government. Decentralization is
divided in to various types such as:
(i) Political decentralization:
Political decentralization aims to give citizens or elected
representatives more power in public decision making. It is often
associated with pluralistic politics and representative government,
but it can also support democratization by giving citizens, or their
representatives, more influence in the formulation and implementation
of policies. Advocates of political decentralization assume that
decisions made with greater participation will be better informed
decisions and more relevant to diverse interests in society than those
made only by rational political authorities. The concept implies that
the selection of representatives from local electoral jurisdictions
allows citizens to know better their political representatives and
allows elected officials to know better the needs and desires of their
constituents.
Political decentralization often requires constitutional or statutory
reforms, the development of pluralistic political parties, the
strengthening of legislation, creation of political units, and the
encouragement of effective public interest groups.
(ii) Administrative Decentralization:
It is a transfer of responsibility for planning, financing and
management of certain public functions from central government and its
agencies or commissions to field units of government agencies, or semi
autonomous government (states for our case).
Administrative decentralization is categorized into:
De-concentration:
Is often considered to be the weakest form of decentralization and is
used most frequently in unitary states. It distributes decision making
authority, financial and managerial responsibility among different
levels of central government. it can merely shift responsibilities
from central government officials in the capital city to those working
in the regions, provinces, or districts or it can create strong field
administration or local administrative capacity under the supervision
of central government ministries.
Delegation:
Delegation is more extensive form of decentralization. Through
delegation, central government transfer responsibility for decision
making and administration of public functions to semi-autonomous
organization not wholly controlled by the central government, but
ultimately accountable to it. Government delegation responsibilities
when they create public enterprises or corporations, housing
authorities, transportation authorities, special service districts,
semi autonomous school districts, regional development corporation, or
special project implement units.
Usually these organizations have a great deal of discretion in
decision making. They may be exempt from constraints of regular civil
service personnel and May able to charge users directly for services.
B- Devolution:
When government devolves functions, they transfer authority for
decision making, finance and management to semi independent local
government. Devolution usually transfers responsibilities for services
to municipalities that elect their own mayors, collect their own taxes
(raise their own revenues locally), and have an independent authority
to make investment decisions. In devolved systems, local governments
have clear and legally recognized geographical boundaries over which
they exercise authority and with in which they perform public
functions or duties. It is this type of administrative
decentralization that underlies most political decentralization.
C- Financial decentralization: Under this system, the local tiers are
responsible for collecting and allocating taxes and other financial
grants. Besides locally raised revenue as a source of the revenue for
the local government, the central government transfers some money
(grants) to local governments. Local governments are also empowered to
borrow up 25% of locally generated revenue but not beyond that amount.
These grants are as follows:
Conditional grants: these are funds that are transferred from central
government to local governments for specific purposes; this
constitutes 88% of central government transfers to local government or
states.
Unconditional grants/Block granting: this is the transfer of funds to
local government for unspecified reasons or purposes; this fund
constitutes 11% of the central government transfers to local
governments.
Equalization grant: these are allocated to disadvantaged local
governments that fare below the national average, this forms very
small percentage of about 0.5% of central government transfers to
local governments. This grant focuses on the services such as
education, roads, health and agriculture extension. The combination of
three grants constitutes 30% of central government transfers to local
governments.
If we clearly compare the above narrative to what’s really happening
in South Sudan, we can find that political decentralization is already
in existence and in its fullest, this because, the members of the
parliament for the state as well as the national legislative
assemblies are both elected at the grass roots to represents the views
or the interest of the local majority, what is lacking in our
political decentralization is that, there is need for constitutional
reforms.
There is also a need to give the local people especially the village
elders to contribute to planning process, i.e. there is a need for the
bottom-upwards planning so that the local views are integrated in the
national planning. This will enable governments to deliver the
services based on the local needs and it will also make the local
people feel that, they are part of public decision making process than
being mere policy implementers.
In regards to administrative decentralization, we already have half of
administrative decentralization, because we have a partial devolution
of powers where states can formulate their laws that suit them besides
national laws that applies to every state. We have already seen states
implementing various national projects like schools, roads etc. this
means that, delegation as part of administrative decentralization is
in practice.
Financial decentralization: which allows the states to allocate and
collects the taxes was in practice before the centralized tax system
was introduced due to austerity measures but there are hopes that,
with resumption of the oil export, the centralized system of tax
system would be reversed.
In regards to the grants that central government transfer to states
and counties respectively, our country has the following this year
basing on ministry of finance circular:
The counties will get additional 220 million ssps for transfer to the
counties to improve basic services like education, health care and
water for people in the rural areas, of this amount, 60 million SSPs
will go to capitation grant for primary schools. This is an amount
paid based on number of pupils enrolled.
Another 60 million ssps will go to the national procurement of
suppliers. It also proposes a block grant of 50 million south Sudanese
pounds (SSPS) to support basic administrative functions in counties.
it further provides an additional 70 million ssps for the counties’
development grant which will then increase to 149 million ssps, this
grant will fund infrastructural projects prioritized by the counties
and will be allocated on population basis.
The finance ministry also proposes payam development grant of 7
million ssps to finance projects identified by Boma and payam
development committees. The payam dev elopement grant will start with
eight counties in four counties in four states and will gradually
expands across all ten states by 2016 stated by the circular .
In summary of financial and government transfers i.e. this year’s
budget, there will be:
50% cuts in housing allowances to be increased by January.
25% cuts in transfers to states to be increased in January.
360 SSPS for construction of juba international airport
50 miilion ssps will go for the construction of the power generation
130 million ssps for job creation in agriculture and other sectors
220 ssps extra amount will go counties to improve basic services in
education, health care and water.
50 million ssps for new block grant to support counties’
administrative functions.
70 million ssps extra for county development grant
7 million ssps for new development grant
The sum of additional funds to the counties this amount to 350
million this year
In my view, what is lacking is that there must be a system that checks
the corruption or how funds are spent in the states or countries , in
Uganda for example , the government had introduced what they called
“public expenditure tracking system” which ensures that , funds
released to districts are accounted for by the respective recipients’
either in districts or counties , the method according to Ugandan
government has ensures upwards accountability and thus tries to
minimize the misappropriation of the transferred funds. In my view,
the chamber of auditing should be sending teams to respective states
or counties to ensure that money transferred is accounted for.
They (the team) should be protected by the law so that when they try
to review public expenditures,, they should do so without any
interference from centre of powers be it national or state level that
would impair their independent findings . Besides, every county should
have a planning unit headed by a planner who plans for the county with
the help of the rest of his subordinates that reports to him.
The time for political accommodation is over; our government should
employ real professionals at grass roots with attractive
remunerations.
I am of a view that our nation should established “National Planning
Authority,” the planning authority would be in charge of planning for
short and long terms plans that would shape our nation in the near
future, it would monitor the implementation of the approved plans,
projects and thereafter evaluates their impacts on society and our
nation as a whole. With such institution in place, the long terms
plans are broken down into a series of achievable short term plans
ranging from annual to five year development plans aimed at achieving
lengthy plans that can cover 5, 10, 25 years or beyond.
The funds to states should be increased, a reliable source has it that
, the government only sends only 14% of the national funds to the
states , these funds should be increased if we are to achieved
development in our States , Counties , Payam and Boma levels of
government . Our government should only retain some of public
functions and then decentralize the rest, for example , the government
should maintain foreign affairs, security services( police, prison and
defense), and national projects . The rest should be decentralized to
the states, this means that, the national ministries should be reduced
from 29 ministries to just 12 or 13 ministries. This will reserves
more funds for the states, all in all , the total transfers to states
should be increased from 14% to 45% of our national budget, and there
should be very , very strict accountability as I proposed above . By
implementing such measures, we will be in position to take towns to
villages than a mere talking without actions.
For example, this year is our agricultural year that would ensure that
2014 becomes a year in which we shall be a self sufficient country but
how is it going to be achieved, is government going to invest in large
agricultural schemes or is government going to give subsidies to local
farmers so as to achieved that dream? And if so, are there going to be
a conditions for the support or is it going to be unconditional
subsidy?
How will government change lip service to practical service delivery?
………………..the list is endless. Government should achieve the goal of our
nation being a food sufficient using different approaches that suits
each state.
In conclusion, our government should decentralize fully its
administrative units so that each state should be in position to
independently plan how it will achieve its developmental ambitions
basing on local priorities. Full devolution of powers will also help
reduce the size of our nation’s power struggle, reduce national
government expenditures, and reduce political competition of coming to
national government in Juba.
To me, the government in Juba should be reduced and strictly mandated
to do regulatory service of states and lower levels of governance, so
that the real service delivery is in fact carried out in the state or
lower levels of government than maintaining a huge public sector that
dwindles resources that should have been channelled to counties,
payams and Bomas to finance developmental programs.
juma
The writer is a concerned South Sudanese Economist
<< Older
Newer >>
3 Comments
jay johnson
June 2, 2013 at 8:26 am
I agreed with most of what you advocate in your article. the 2009
local government act which was passed by South Sudan national assembly
parliament contains almost all types of decentralization you
highlighted in your article. the act transfers fiscal and
administrative decisions making process to the lower level to enable
greater citizenry participation. it does also empower the local
government, especially the states to set up counties, payams and bomas
administration without having to rely on the national governments for
directions.
Surprisingly, the advocates of federalism purposely over look the
2009 local government act which address most of their concerns. what
is needed is full and unconditional implementation of the act. we as
citizen ought to put pressure on the government to implement the law.
however, i do not support the complete de-centralization of tax
collection systems as most of the taxes collected come from Equatoria
region borders. this will create unequal sharing of resources among
the states. some states do not have more business to collect taxes
from like Jonglei, Warrap, Northern Bahr el ghazel, western upper nile
and Upper Nile. Central equatoria in particularly will benefit greatly
since most import goods enter the country from Uganda borders.
States should be allowed to collect and keep 50% of the taxes they
levied while the central government should be given the remaining
balance to distribute to commercially less fortunates states. I remain
optimistic about the future of our country. Our expectations after
independence were high and somewhat unrealistic given a timeline in
which we expect the government to address all the pressing needs of
the nation.
thank for the article, it is very articulate and well thought out.
Jay johnson
Reply
juma
June 3, 2013 at 1:54 pm
Brother jay jonhson, thanks for your response to the article,
allow me to clarify the point that did not go well with you in the
article and that is taxation. decentralizing taxation will not affect
other states as u have worried about in your reply, vehicles that are
meant to go to warrap, lakes, unity states among others will be left
untaxed in the border like Nimule and Kaya till they reached their
final destination. this will allow state, counties and wherever the
vehicle will be offloaded to benefit, because the locality in which
the offloading is carried out would be mandated to retain 60% of the
collected revenue and 40% would be sent to state.
Both central and eastern equatoria will benefit more than other
states but their massive benefit in comparison with other states in
terms of tax revenue would be equalized by reducing the percentage of
their grants or increasing their percentage they give to national
government, it used to be 60% for central Equatoria and 40 to GOSS, if
we are to rectify that, the opposite would be true. i hope i have
clarified what was not going well with u
Reply
jay johnson
June 4, 2013 at 4:07 pm
I concur with you, juma, but still the formula you suggested would
be unfair way of resources distribution. remember 98% of government
budget comes from Western upper nile and upper nile states. Only about
1% of the total budget comes from other states with remaining 1% from
international development aid and grants. so the country is being
financed from 98% oil revenues that comes from upper nile region.
the proponents of ethnic and regional federalism seem not to care
as to where the regional governments being proposed will finance their
activities if regionalism, as a political model was to be adopted. how
will they pay their state employees let alone financing development.
we will be better off to remain a united nation just for the sake of
sharing the little oil revenues that comes from upper nile.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"South Sudan Info - The Kob" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to [email protected].
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
To view this discussion on the web visit
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/SouthSudanKob/CAJb14orreaNVOwxWimxj4KrnFnJpucWxwQEER5379wsa8fKfBA%40mail.gmail.com?hl=en-US.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
