By CHRIS BANGA* - PNGNRI
Continued from last week
Political
appointments
THE Chief Executive Officer (CEO) to the DDA Board is also
the District Administrator and assumes a key (dual) role in the district in
terms of:
a) implementing
the policy and decisions of the Authority in accordance with the directions of
the Board; and
b) day-to-day
control and supervision of the staff of the authority.
While the Act aims to bring service to subnational levels of
government, it is important that the Authority should be in order and working.
The employability of qualified staff, notably the CEO/District Administrator,
is crucial in facilitating the aforementioned roles.
However, the frequent changes in CEOs/District
Administrators is concerning. It was evident from the four districts consulted
for this study that all the CEOs/District Administrators were new to the job.
They are all on acting appointments and not more than two years in the job
(Duncan et al., 2017).
For one particular district, the CEO/District Administrator
has been changing almost every year since 2012. In another, the new acting CEO
on taking up the role learnt that the DDA Board was sworn in but there was no
transcript of the meetings or of any decisions of the previous administration.
Obviously, the new administration has to start all over again.
Such problems can potentially create frictions among the
workers, which may subsequently lead to poor work ethic and poor service
delivery. There was resentment among the district workers during the
consultations over the appointment of someone who was perceived to be
inexperienced and new to the district functions. Moreover, the emergence of political
staff/electoral official is conflicting with the district administration.
While it seems that the administrative structure of the DDA
is not clear (see Figure 1), it appears that the emergence of the ‘electoral
officials’ is creating more problems. Administratively, all sectors report to
the CEO, who together with the District Finance Officer represents them at the
DDA Board.
In an ideal situation, the wards bring up issues through
their respective ward councillors to the LLG assembly. Issues are then tabled
at the DDA Board, deliberated and a decision is reached. The electoral officer
stands in this position and brings proposals either directly to the DDA Board
or through the CEO, who in most cases is appointed by the district MP. This
situation directly questions the existence of the Ward Development Committee
(ward councillors) and the officers at the district level.
On the same note, the district official’s role is
increasingly taken over by the electoral officials. An officer from the
district consultations mentioned that the officers at the district level are
undermined by the electoral official. “The
electoral official is becoming more powerful than the public servants.”
Electoral officials are becoming powerful simply because
they report to no one. They could be reporting to the district MP, but they are
usually cronies of the district MPs and may take sides with them anyway.
Figure 1 illustrates the position of the electoral officials
in the district administration, which is seen to be encouraged by the district
MP.
Figure 1: District
administration set up
Source: Adopted
from Duncan et al., 2017, Table 1, p. 32.
An agricultural officer, for instance, is trained and
employed by the district to perform duties consistent with the policy and
guidelines specified in the job description. One of these is to provide
technical advice to the councillor, LLG and the district on what projects to
undertake and tie them to their follow-up programmes and training. This
activity has been taken over by the electoral officers, and it can be argued
that as a result an unorthodox individual is operating outside of the
established system of government.
The DDA Act only provides for the appointment of the three
representatives to the Board. The appointment of the ‘electoral officials’
seems inconsistent with the Act; therefore, it is further recommended for a
study to be conducted to understand the appointment processes and their impact
of service delivery.
Moreover, it appears that the public service delivery
mechanism is undermined by the ‘electoral official’. The implications are that
there is a public service delivery mechanism that is paid for by the government
that is having minimal or no impact. Could this explain the expansion of the
public service delivery mechanism in this illegal way? Also, could it explain
the decline in reporting on the services improvement programmes in the
districts and provinces since 2013?
Furthermore, the public service delivery mechanism at the
district level is not complementing the increasing funding that is received by
the district. Increased funding and direct control is going to the district;
therefore, CEOs and sector coordinators must be competent and properly trained
to handle the tasks. It was obvious from the district consultations that the
district workers, including the district CEOs, must be better trained to handle
the increased funding to the district.
Confused
administrative structure
Having the right size of human and institutional capacity,
financial resources and appropriate administrative and legal framework
contributes positively to implementing decentralisation policy. However, there
is a serious lack of capacity to effectively use available funds and
decision-making is often politically driven (Wiltshire, 2014).
It was highlighted in an earlier study (Gelu, 2009) that
capacity7 in the districts and LLGs refers to the resources that are available
and which would assist the districts, the LLGs, and their personnel to
effectively deliver services to the people.
Human resources such as staff training, skills,
qualifications and regular inspection are a key component of the district
capacity. The CEOs are assuming new (additional) roles under the Act, and as
such they are expected to perform. In response to a question in parliament, the
then Public Service Minister, Sir Puka Temu said, as reported on The National
(Muhuyupe, 2017):
Under the
District Development Authority (DDA) Act, human resource functions are now with
the chief executive officer, according to Public Service Commission Minister
Sir Puka Temu.
Sir Puka was
responding to Pomio MP Elias Kapavore, who asked whether CEOs of districts
under the DDA Act could do their own organisational reviews, advertisements and
conduct recruitments.
Sir Puka said
the expectation of the Prime Minister was for every staff of the district,
especially the police, teachers and health workers who were at the front line
of government service delivery, was properly managed and disciplined. He said
some of the constitutional amendments made were on the Police Act and the
Teaching Service Commission legislation so teachers and policemen knew that the
CEO had the HR function under the new DDA Act.
“We have made
constitutional amendments so the provincial police commander, for example, will
delegate some of the powers to the CEO.”
“So, the
policeman and station commander can have some clarity in making sure that the
CEO had HR powers and roles over them.”
He further
said that CEO had HR functions and powers over the teachers, with the education
secretary and education advisers delegating tasks under the DDA Act to the CEO.
The first issue in question is whether or not the CEOs and
district workers are properly inducted to understand their roles and
responsibilities. It was argued that improving staff training is one way of
addressing capacity at the district and LLG levels. It appeared that the
majority of the 89 districts and 305 LLGs lack most of these resources,
including human resources. For example, districts and LLGs need to train and
retain more skilled personal to effectively plan, implement and account for the
allocated funds. (Gelu, 2009)
It was obvious from the consultations that proper
induction/training is needed to ensure the CEOs understand their roles and that
of the district workers. Here are some responses from the consultations:
DDA is an animal created for
service delivery but the roles and responsibilities are complicated, not
clearly defined. – PA Executive Officer.
The DDA is more or less
synonymous with the JDP&BPC, except for the fact that they are given
authority. With the DDA, we are challenged to elevate our roles and
responsibilities to be compliant with the up scaling. The CEO said, “you cannot
train an old dog new tricks”. Another challenge is to get new people in the new
structure. – CEO.
Also, it is envisaged that the district when deemed fit and
necessary can establish its works unit. To establish a district works unit will
require a lot of resources including civil engineers, draftsmen and mechanical
engineers. The ambition is not contested here, but the challenge is obvious in
that the district may require a lot of capacity in that area alone.
The challenge of having, for instance, 89 civil engineers in
the country, not to mention the other skills, is huge. Kokopo district, for
example, sourced technical people from the Department of Works and Gazelle
Restoration Authority on a short-term basis (Duncan et al., 2017). If Kokopo,
the fourth largest city of PNG and biggest urban centre in the Niugini Island
can face shortages of human resources, it is not expected that the other
districts across PNG can access the necessary number of qualified people.
However, the Department of Works has branches in every
province across the country. Some provinces have a functioning Provincial Works
and Supply Unit while others rely heavily on the department. This merely shows
that it is feasible to have 21 engineers plus others in each province. The
challenge though is to collaborate with the districts on development agendas.
Hence, coordination and collaboration in project
implementation will alleviate some of these issues. Yet it is a challenge where
provinces and districts do not work in harmony to deliver basic services. A
Deputy Provincial Administrator said:
The chairperson of the DDA can
choose to liaise with either the province or not. That isolated the executive
arm of the government. That makes them more powerful in the case of making
decisions as a DDA Board. They can make good or bad decisions; it is legitimised
by the DDA Act. They do not need to liaise with the province and that is the
challenge. The DPA is of the view that “one has to be more like a saint to run
the DDA”.
Proper coordination and collaboration is therefore vital to
implementing key development projects in the districts and provinces. As called
for by the Act, districts must be willing to work with the province to ensure
effective delivery of services.
Furthermore, it is apparent that the two provinces adopted a
somewhat different organisational structure in that Rigo and Abau districts in
Central province have CEOs/District Administrators followed by Planners,
whereas East New Britain’s Kokopo and Gazelle districts have Deputy
CEOs/District Administrators without Planners.
While the Act specifies that District Administrators are
also CEO of the Authority for the district, there is no mention of the Deputy
CEO position, which used to exist before the introduction of the DDA Act. There
is thus obvious confusion between the two provinces.
Also, in Central province many of the workers are located at
the district headquarters whereas in East New Britain, most of the officers are
positioned at the LLGs. It appears that the level of decentralisation is
implemented differently at different places too, as shown in Table 2.
Table 2: Level of
decentralisation in different districts
Source: Duncan et
al., 2017, Table 1, p. 22.
The DDA Act 2014 was introduced ahead of any determinants
(Duncan et al., 2017) and it is not possible at this stage to elaborate on the
make-up of the Authority and the channel of reporting. Therefore, it is further
recommended that the Department of Provincial and Local Level Government
Affairs (DPLGA) come up with the determinants to complement the roll-out of the
DDA and clarify the establishment of the city authorities for the benefit of
Lae, Mt Hagen and Kokopo.
In the next issue, we look at the
‘Characteristics of successful decentralisation policy’
* Chris Banga is a Research
Project Officer in the Economic Policy Research Program at the Papua New Guinea
National Research Institute.
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