Time for govt to review decentralisation policy
Jul 15, 2009
The New Vision’s editorial of June 18, entitled, “Community effort promotes quality of life,†hit the nail on the head in respect of the important matter of community participation.
By Okodan Akwap
The New Vision’s editorial of June 18, entitled, “Community effort promotes quality of life,†hit the nail on the head in respect of the important matter of community participation.
The UN in 1981 defined community participation as: “The creation of opportunities to enable all members of a community to actively contribute to and influence the development process and to share equitably in the fruits of developmentâ€.
It is right that New Vision commended an effort by six firms in Kampala to stimulate energy from a local community to participate in unblocking a clogged drainage system.
The New Vision’s laudatory welcome of “this kind of spirit†deserves repeating: “It is one way people can improve their quality of life without having to turn to politicians or the Government for helpâ€. This spirit, according to the paper, “is a result of the local authorities’ inability to collect rubbish or remove it from drainage systemsâ€. However, here is where the paper left a very important question unasked: Why?
To be sure, it is not enough for people living in the five divisions of Kampala District – Central, Kawempe, Makindye, Nakawa and Rubaga – to merely decry the growing mountains of garbage, floods that turn roads into treacherous rivers, poor health services, soaring crime rates and many other quality-of-life problems. Let us ask: Why is this so?
The New Vision argued that “bureaucracy, shortage of money, corruption and outright incompetence often stand in the way of progressâ€. Well put. But who should get the whip for letting these ills continue threatening the quality of life in Kampala District? Recently I completed a short internship at Makindye Division headquarters and I left with the impression that there is enough blame for the enormous problems that Kampala’s local authorities face.
Historical background
Before I get to specific problems, I wish to highlight a historical perspective about our local government structures. The Ministry of Local Government, in its Decentralisation Policy Strategic Framework paper of 2006, stipulated that the policy was intended, “To fundamentally transform society by empowering citizens to take charge of their development agenda so as to improve their livelihoodâ€.
Empowerment
Decentralisation has three key functional levels: political, administrative and fiscal. Political decentralisation shifts policy-making responsibility from Central to Local Governments.
Ideally, such empowerment is loaded with political, economic and other advantages. It encourages equity through greater retention and equal distribution of the gains realised from local activities. And it contributes to the grass-root development agendas by allowing local communities to marshal and retain revenue for effective service delivery.
The implementation of the decentralisation policy has been problematic in Uganda, creating several constraints for local community development efforts. Inadequate funding, political interference and lack of capacity to ably handle various issues are some of the cries you hear from local communities. In a chapter he wrote in the book, Decentralisation and Civil Society In Uganda: The Quest For Good Governance, Apollo Nsibambi, the Prime Minister, analysed some of the problems of communities. He noted that grants from the Central Government to Local Governments were not predictable, transparent and pre-determined. Local revenue generation was not assured; and there was widespread tax evasion.
Tax evasion
I first became aware of the acuteness of the tax evasion problem in Kampala four years ago when I investigated it for The East African newspaper. In the story, published in the paper’s edition of July 25 to 31, 2005, I reported that Kampala City Council (KCC) had gone to court to recover some sh30b from property rate defaulters. KCC took the action in desperation because it had lost its major source of income following the scrapping of graduated tax by the then finance minister, Dr. Ezra Suruma, in his 2005/06 budget.
Even now the very people who grumble that KCC is not collecting garbage or unblocking drainage systems are not pulling their own weight. Tax compliance is woefully low in Uganda. Apart from workers in the formal sector whose pay-as-you-earn taxes are simply deducted from the payroll, other taxpayers in the informal sector as well as owners of properties and businesses like dodging taxes. We need to develop a culture of paying taxes.
Split Communities
Political interference in the developmental activities of local communities is another major problem in Kampala. It has led to the splitting of local communities along political lines, with party expressions drowning calls for collective community participation in developmental activities. It is common to see that development priorities are based on political calculations, but not on local community needs.
The problem of split communities is one reason why the decentralisation policy should be revisited. When it was formulated, Uganda was a “no-party†state. We were expected to work together to deal with the problems affecting our communities. But that is no more. We are now in a multiparty era. And that is how we see power actors in local communities – including political, religious and cultural leaders – tending to pull in different directions.
This is one reason why Kampala is increasingly becoming a community of angry residents. An example is the Kisekka Market vendors who are so angry that every other day they are willing to use rudimentary weapons such as stones, clubs, catapults and fists to face-off with heavily- armed riot police.
Conclusion
It is no good praising community participation as the best way for a poor community to solve some of its complex problems. What matters is actualising the participation. To make community participation in decision-making meaningful, the Government needs to revisit some of the aspects of the decentralisation policy, to accommodate the needs of diverse communities in this multiparty era.
The writer is the head of mass communication at Kampala International University
The New Vision’s editorial of June 18, entitled, “Community effort promotes quality of life,†hit the nail on the head in respect of the important matter of community participation.
The UN in 1981 defined community participation as: “The creation of opportunities to enable all members of a community to actively contribute to and influence the development process and to share equitably in the fruits of developmentâ€.
It is right that New Vision commended an effort by six firms in Kampala to stimulate energy from a local community to participate in unblocking a clogged drainage system.
The New Vision’s laudatory welcome of “this kind of spirit†deserves repeating: “It is one way people can improve their quality of life without having to turn to politicians or the Government for helpâ€. This spirit, according to the paper, “is a result of the local authorities’ inability to collect rubbish or remove it from drainage systemsâ€. However, here is where the paper left a very important question unasked: Why?
To be sure, it is not enough for people living in the five divisions of Kampala District – Central, Kawempe, Makindye, Nakawa and Rubaga – to merely decry the growing mountains of garbage, floods that turn roads into treacherous rivers, poor health services, soaring crime rates and many other quality-of-life problems. Let us ask: Why is this so?
The New Vision argued that “bureaucracy, shortage of money, corruption and outright incompetence often stand in the way of progressâ€. Well put. But who should get the whip for letting these ills continue threatening the quality of life in Kampala District? Recently I completed a short internship at Makindye Division headquarters and I left with the impression that there is enough blame for the enormous problems that Kampala’s local authorities face.
Historical background
Before I get to specific problems, I wish to highlight a historical perspective about our local government structures. The Ministry of Local Government, in its Decentralisation Policy Strategic Framework paper of 2006, stipulated that the policy was intended, “To fundamentally transform society by empowering citizens to take charge of their development agenda so as to improve their livelihoodâ€.
Empowerment
Decentralisation has three key functional levels: political, administrative and fiscal. Political decentralisation shifts policy-making responsibility from Central to Local Governments.
Ideally, such empowerment is loaded with political, economic and other advantages. It encourages equity through greater retention and equal distribution of the gains realised from local activities. And it contributes to the grass-root development agendas by allowing local communities to marshal and retain revenue for effective service delivery.
The implementation of the decentralisation policy has been problematic in Uganda, creating several constraints for local community development efforts. Inadequate funding, political interference and lack of capacity to ably handle various issues are some of the cries you hear from local communities. In a chapter he wrote in the book, Decentralisation and Civil Society In Uganda: The Quest For Good Governance, Apollo Nsibambi, the Prime Minister, analysed some of the problems of communities. He noted that grants from the Central Government to Local Governments were not predictable, transparent and pre-determined. Local revenue generation was not assured; and there was widespread tax evasion.
Tax evasion
I first became aware of the acuteness of the tax evasion problem in Kampala four years ago when I investigated it for The East African newspaper. In the story, published in the paper’s edition of July 25 to 31, 2005, I reported that Kampala City Council (KCC) had gone to court to recover some sh30b from property rate defaulters. KCC took the action in desperation because it had lost its major source of income following the scrapping of graduated tax by the then finance minister, Dr. Ezra Suruma, in his 2005/06 budget.
Even now the very people who grumble that KCC is not collecting garbage or unblocking drainage systems are not pulling their own weight. Tax compliance is woefully low in Uganda. Apart from workers in the formal sector whose pay-as-you-earn taxes are simply deducted from the payroll, other taxpayers in the informal sector as well as owners of properties and businesses like dodging taxes. We need to develop a culture of paying taxes.
Split Communities
Political interference in the developmental activities of local communities is another major problem in Kampala. It has led to the splitting of local communities along political lines, with party expressions drowning calls for collective community participation in developmental activities. It is common to see that development priorities are based on political calculations, but not on local community needs.
The problem of split communities is one reason why the decentralisation policy should be revisited. When it was formulated, Uganda was a “no-party†state. We were expected to work together to deal with the problems affecting our communities. But that is no more. We are now in a multiparty era. And that is how we see power actors in local communities – including political, religious and cultural leaders – tending to pull in different directions.
This is one reason why Kampala is increasingly becoming a community of angry residents. An example is the Kisekka Market vendors who are so angry that every other day they are willing to use rudimentary weapons such as stones, clubs, catapults and fists to face-off with heavily- armed riot police.
Conclusion
It is no good praising community participation as the best way for a poor community to solve some of its complex problems. What matters is actualising the participation. To make community participation in decision-making meaningful, the Government needs to revisit some of the aspects of the decentralisation policy, to accommodate the needs of diverse communities in this multiparty era.
The writer is the head of mass communication at Kampala International University