By Ladipo Adamolekun

Complaints about poor service delivery are louder in the country today than in 2007 when I examined the causes and proposed some remedies (Vanguard, October 24th 2007). Without question, the complaints are louder because the problem has worsened. For example, electricity supply, roads, education standards, and health care are worse today than they were twelve years ago.  In other words, our situation is worse than the memorable line from Baba Sala (late ace Yoruba comedian): ko pass ko fail, ko kuro lojukan – we have not progressed; we have retrogressed.  

Ladipo Adamolekun

After a brief flashback to the so-called “Service compact with all Nigerians” (SERVICOM) that was launched in 2003/2004 which has now been more or less consigned to the dustbin of history, I revisit each of the three main causes of poor service delivery that I highlighted in 2007 with appropriate updates. They are: (i) unaccountable governments; (ii) weak public service implementation capacity; and (iii) over-centralised federalism.  Finally, I provide four measures that could help governments to achieve improved service delivery.

SERVICOM – RIP: Concretely, it was no more than a cosmetic imitation of Britain’s Citizens’ charters (for achieving improved service delivery).  It was run as a British Government technical assistance programme but was not an integral part of a service orientation strategy and programme as was the case in Britain.  Unsurprisingly, SERVICOM had no real impact on service delivery either at the federal level or in states that adopted the imitation. It was hardly known outside its secretariat and the small number of government agencies selected to pilot it. The attempt to fold it into the National Strategy for Public Service Reform (NSPSR) prepared for the federal government in 2009 by a team of experts and senior civil servants failed because only some aspects of the strategy were ever implemented.

Unaccountable Governments

The first step in getting public service delivery right is having a good understanding of the accountability underpinning. This has two main dimensions. First, elected executive and legislative politicians are accountable to citizens when governments emerge after periodic free, fair and credible elections and citizens can vote out a government that has performed poorly whilst rewarding a well-performing government with another term in office. Second, there should be a taxation-accountability nexus to ensure that citizens demand quality service delivery because they would normally pay the taxes that finance the activities of governments.

Although the three election cycles that have followed the  2007 “do or die” and massively rigged election cycle have recorded varying degrees of fairness and credibility – 2015 with very good scorecard, 2011 with good scorecard and 2019 with fair scorecard – the idea that government is accountable to the governed has not yet become established in the governance culture in the country.  To date, both executive and legislative politicians do not feel obliged to be responsive to citizens’ demands. The extensive involvement of courts in determining winners and losers of elections – unprecedented in both old and emerging democracies – has further muddled the question of politicians’ responsiveness to citizens. (Zamfara State case in 2019 where losers in governorship and legislative elections became winners through a court verdict could become an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records)!

Regarding the taxation-accountability nexus, the heavy reliance of governments at all levels on oil money has reduced the extent to which the activities of governments are financed by taxes paid by citizens. Even the few States that vigorously seek to grow their internally generated revenue (IGR) do not pay adequate attention to the services due to taxpayers as quid pro quo. Worse, in the vast majority of Local Government Areas, there is close to zero service delivery.  Chairmen of councils, councillors and their staff share the monthly allocations and pay salaries and warm their seats while awaiting the next round of allocations.

Overall, then, governments at all levels are largely unaccountable for the reasons summarised above and the ineluctable result is persistent poor service delivery. For Nigerians to enjoy quality service delivery, there must be progress toward accountable governments.

Weak Public Service Implementation Capacity

The next step in getting public service delivery right after a clarification of the accountability underpinning is a sharp focus on implementation. Since 1999, political leaders at both the federal and state levels have regularly complained about the weak implementation capacity of their public services. The following corroboration was recently provided with respect to the situation at the federal level:  “The Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Mrs Winifred Oyo-Ita, has said that the findings of a survey showed that civil servants’ skills deficiency was alarming, hence the need for training and retraining to address the deficiencies” (Daily Trust, April 22nd 2019). This admission of alarming skills deficiency in the federal civil service is a clear indication of a serious inadequacy in the quality of public services delivered by federal MDAs.

I am aware that the alarm raised by the head of the federal civil service would have been unnecessary if the recommendations on public service capacity development in the NSPSR prepared in 2009 had been implemented. (I led the group of experts and selected senior civil servants who prepared the strategy). A significant number of states have adopted public/civil service transformation/reform strategies during the last decade or so.  However, it is only stated that have continuously implemented capacity development programmes for its public/civil servants that would be free from variations on the alarming skills deficiencies identified within the federal civil service. Any state government that is genuinely committed to achieving improved service delivery must immediately commit to enhancing the capacity of its public service and maintain the commitment throughout its tenure.

Given the critical role of information and communication technology (ICT) in enhancing effective public service delivery in recent decades (notably with respect to education, health, agriculture extension services, procurement and land management), crash training programmes on basic ICT skills must feature prominently in governments’ capacity building programmes. To date, only a small number of Nigerian civil servants at federal and state levels have the basic ICT skills:  Microsoft Office (word processing, power-point and excel) and use of the Internet for emails and learning and to communicate and participate in collaborative networks. Governments could partner with selected tertiary education institutions to assure both the initial training and subsequent re-training and higher-level training. However, the proposed rapid acquisition of ICT skills would only be feasible if there are more reliable electricity supply and rapid enhancement of ICT infrastructure (computer hardware and software, bandwidth, intranet, internet, and internet equipment.

Citizen Engagement in Public Service Delivery:  Attention to the implementation capacity of public servants who are the primary providers of public services is complemented in recent public sector management literature with a consideration of the perspectives of the beneficiaries of the services provided. There is an emphasis on mechanisms for the citizens to demand improved and responsive services such as information disclosure. Although Nigeria’s Freedom of Information Act 2011 (domesticated as FOI laws in some states) is a step in this direction, governments have been reluctant to disclose information to citizens and civil society organisations that have invoked FOI Act/Laws. I would add that given the large proportion of citizens who only use indigenous languages, the relevant language should be used, to the extent possible, in administrative communication in the different states. (Currently, only Hausa appears to be used fairly adequately in administrative communication in the states where it is the dominant indigenous language)

Other mechanisms used to ensure citizen engagement in service delivery include citizens’ charters or variations on the theme such as citizens’ budgets/participatory budgeting and scorecard exercises/report cards. Again, SERVICOM that is the only serious effort to use the mechanism in the country to date failed to gain traction. Furthermore, regarding the use of ICT to enhance citizen engagement that has become widespread in many countries across continents (including a few countries in Africa) since the 1990s, the low ICT penetration in the country to date means that this tool is not yet available for use.  An example of what we are missing is the “One Stop Shop” (OSS) that includes such mechanisms as one-door or single-window services, community service centres, citizen service centres, information centres, and e-government web-portals. Significantly, OSS is reputed to impact on service delivery through such measures as citizens’ satisfaction, lower corruption, and greater efficiency of service delivery.

Over-Centralized federalism

There are significant overlaps among the country’s three spheres of government – federal, state and local – with respect to delivering services relating to functions that are on the concurrent list (for the federal and state governments) or in the Fourth Schedule on the functions of Local Governments.  Instead of cooperative and collaborative efforts among the spheres of government to ensure efficient and effective delivery of services, the citizens have experienced poor to mediocre service delivery because of unproductive acrimony and competition among the spheres of government.  The negative consequences include continued decline and decay in the health and education sectors and poor infrastructure (especially roads and electricity).

The recent controversy over the Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF) is a good illustration of the challenge of managing federal/state relations with respect to health care service delivery. On May 21st 2019, the federal minister of health affirmed before a Senate plenary session that state governments had “literally abandoned” health care. Then, he specifically accused fourteen (14) states of refusal to embrace the BHCPF that would have enabled them to access the N55.15billion allocated for primary health care in the 2018 federal budget.  Several of the accused state governments that responded to the minister’s accusation complained about fairness, lack of transparency, politicisation, and miscommunication.

I would add that the interconnection among spheres of government that hugely impacts negatively on service delivery is the continued use of a revenue allocation formula that was consistent with the over-centralized management of economic and social policies under the military to share revenues under a civilian federal system for which the constitution prescribes decentralized management of socio-economic policies.  Instead of the current allocation of the lion’s share of 52.68% to the federal government with only 26.72% and 20.6% to state and local governments respectively, I would propose a 40:60 sharing ratio, that is, 40% for the federal government and 60% for the states and their local governments. This new formula is almost certain to enhance public service delivery throughout the country.

Achieving Improved  Public Service Delivery

Below are four measures that could help governments to improve the quality of services delivered to citizens in their respective jurisdictions

1. Enhancing Service Delivery Performance through a Delivery Unit

In recent public sector management literature, attention is drawn to how some countries seek to improve public service delivery through the establishment of Delivery Units. A widely cited international good practice is the one established in the United Kingdom during Prime Minister Tony Blair’s tenure: Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit (PMDU). Through the work of the PMDU, Britain’s public services were significantly transformed in the 2000s and this resulted in improved public service performance, especially with respect to the delivery of health, education and transport services. In the 2010s Ekiti and Lagos States have sought to scale up service delivery through Office of Transformation, Strategy and Delivery (OTSD). In both states, the mandate of OTSD includes developing service delivery targets for Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) with a view to enhancing service delivery performance. The OTSD in each state comprises a small group of highly skilled people and is an integral part of the centre of government (COG) as it reports directly to the Governor. Notwithstanding the lack of assessments of the impact of the OTSD in Ekiti and Lagos states to date, I would still like to suggest that state governments that desire to enhance public service delivery performance should explore the desirability of establishing a Delivery Unit – to be set up as a compact office with a small number of highly-skilled people. (The establishment of two Delivery Units at the federal level in 2015/2016 was a faux pas and the experiments appear to have been abandoned).

2. Nurturing a Service Culture

Although the civil service is only one of several service providers in the public sector, it is the primary instrument for implementing government’s policies and programmes and its performance/non-performance impacts hugely on the other public sector service providers.  Of the different actions that can help nurture service culture, I would like to emphasise two: (i) ensuring a quality workforce; and (ii) leadership by example of the Head of the Civil Service (HOS).

I would argue that three crucial human development issues with respect to having a quality workforce are recruitment and retention, education and training, and ethical standards. Together, they contribute significantly to the achievement of improved service delivery. Recruiting and retaining top-rate staff can be best achieved by giving primacy to the merit principle whilst assuring fair representation for geographical areas, race, ethnicity, women and persons with a physical disability. (Good practice example: Ekiti State’s ratio of 80:20 for merit principle and diversity respectively).  Next, there is a need for a robust education and training programme for staff with a view to deepening their knowledge and upgrading their skills through periodic attendance at training courses. On completion of prescribed courses, officers should be appropriately deployed to areas where they can make optimal contributions. Furthermore, the quality of the workforce is enhanced by insistence on respect for the guiding principles and core values of the civil service that are normally spelt out in the transformation strategy including assuring certainty of reward and sanctions for good and bad performance respectively.  Finally, the HOS must lead by example: walk her/his talk, ensure that government’s directives are faithfully implemented by MDAs, and champion the welfare of the workforce and the public service, in general.

3. Curbing Corruption in Service Delivery

According to the literature on the problem of corruption, it is poor and very poor who suffer most from corruption in service delivery. When public services are “for sale” (through the payment of bribes), it is the middle class and the rich who can take advantage. Furthermore, corruption lowers the quality of public services (especially infrastructure services) and it violates the social and economic rights of the poor and the vulnerable. The obvious twin remedies are: (i) preventing corruption in public service delivery and (ii) punishing officials involved in corrupt practices. To this end, I would like to advise state governments to consider adopting the good practice of Kano State which is the first sub-national government in Nigeria to establish an anti-corruption agency (Kano State Public Complaints and Anti-corruption Commission). It is reasonable to assume that Kano State established the agency not because it is the most corrupt of the country’s 36 states but because of the government’s commitment to reducing the negative consequences of corruption.  Although I have not had access to an assessment of the agency’s performance, its existence is significant and reports of the removal of some corrupt senior public officials during its first two years could serve as a deterrent to would-be bribe takers in the public service. (Adamawa State has followed Kano State’s good practice example and in June, the new Governor of Oyo State announced plans to set up an anti-corruption agency). Having a significant number of state governments join the fight against corruption that President Buhari has championed since 2015 would be a positive development, notwithstanding the mixture of hits and misses in the scorecard of the federal effort to date.

4. Join the Open Government Partnership and Implement its Core Commitments

Finally, I would also like to advise non-member state governments to consider joining the Open Government Partnership (OGP) whose members have the following four core commitments: (i) Increase the availability of information about governmental activities; (ii) Support civic participation; (iii) Implement the highest standards of professional integrity throughout our administrations: and (iv) Increase access to new technologies for openness and accountability. Strikingly, these four commitments relate, in varying degrees, to the key issues examined earlier in this essay as well as to each of the three specific measures in the preceding three paragraphs. Nigeria joined the OGP in 2016 and since then six states have followed suit: Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, Kaduna and Kano. Although neither the federal government nor any of the states that have joined the OGP can be cited as good examples with respect to any of the four core commitments, interested states should join OGP with a determination to both implement its four core commitments and draw on the organisation’s resources, especially some of its’ members good practices in public service delivery performance.

NIGERIA NOTES (New Series)

Professor Ladipo Adamolekun writes from Iju, Akure North, Ondo State.