Is de-agencification a magic bullet for a country’s transformation?

__________________

OPINION

By Dr Davis Malowa Ndanyi

De-agencification may not be a magic bullet; however, it can be utilised as a valuable reform conduit to turn around a country’s transformation agenda only if it is implemented strategically and in context.

What is De-Agencification?  De-agencification refers to the process of reabsorbing semi-autonomous government agencies back into central government ministries or devolving their powers, budgets, or independence. Quite often this is undertaken for a number of reasons such as: enhancing policy coherence, reducing duplication in service delivery, eliminating waste and redundancy and improving accountability, among others.

Why may De-agencification be undertaken as an economic transformation path.

A number of reasons have been advanced as follows;

In order to forge policy coherence.  In an economy where agencification has been greatly undertaken, fragmented mandates can lead to conflicting or overlapping responsibilities.

To bring about fiscal austerity, governments facing strict budget pressures may decide to dissolve or merge agencies to save funds for essential priorities at specific moments in time.

Arising out of poor oversight and corruption tendencies, some government agencies become strongholds for corruption tendencies, inefficiency, foot-dragging, and negligence due to the absence of close supervision from the central government.

With too many agencies, duplication of roles becomes prominent and hence causing untold pressure on the economy in terms of wages, effective service delivery and the management of the critical budgets.

De-Agencification can, in one way or another other occasions, economic transformation as per the following arguments;

When de-agencification is undertaken strategically, it improves efficiency through cutting operational costs and redundancies, besides it will streamline service delivery and decision making as critical pillars of economic transformation.

Besides, de-agencification is likely to reassert government control by strengthening central coordination and policy alignment and hence ensuring that public resources are properly aligned within the national planning parameters.

It can also restore public trust in government in its constitutional mandate of providing the basic social delivery systems, such as infrastructural development, waste management, health and education service provision.

Why de-agencification may not be a magic bullet for the national economic transformation.

First and foremost, most of the time, agencies are created to provide high-level technical expertise with highly trained human resources, which may not be available in the government ministries, where these agencies would be transferred to.

The root causes of inefficiency, such as corruption, poor accountability, maladministration, and poor leadership, may not be addressed by de-agencification per se, and hence it may not be a magic bullet.

A likelihood of service disruption could occur due to the transfer of the structures, resources and functions. By the time the processes are concluded, a lot could have been messed up due to the bureaucratic confusion during de-agencification, and this would be at the expense of quality service delivery to the citizens.

There is a likelihood of resistance and foot-dragging from the affected leadership, and yet a smooth transition is necessary to achieve the anticipated benefit of this policy shift. This is most prominent where people’s jobs and power centres are threatened.

In a nutshell, De-agencification is an ideal policy shift for public sector transformation, especially where agencies have become inefficient, politicised, polarised or redundant; however, it can work strategically well if other tools and key players are simultaneously deployed.

The writer is an academic and a human resource management practitioner