SMALL GOVERNMENT AND BETTER SERVICE DELIVERY : AN APPRAISAL OF THE 2008 CIVIL SERVICE REFORM

CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the Study

Rebuilding public administration becomes an urgent reform of government in nations like Liberia recouping from civil war, insurrections, or outside military invasions. Rebuilding a vibrant administration is at the crux of post-conflict reconstruction (Rondinelli, 2006). The assertion offered by Rondinelli (2006), is confirmed by the creation of the Governance Commission of Liberia in August 2003 amid the Accra Comprehensive Peace Accord (CPA). One of the central guidelines of Governance Commission is to advance reform, proficiency, and transparency in the public sector of Liberia thereby suggesting rationalization of institutional orders and structures; coordination, capacity building and designed an appropriate merit-based system (GC, 2003).

Anazodo, Okoye, and Emma (2012) affirmed that countries throughout the world are presently in the corridor to construct a resilient civil service that will adequately give the proficient and viable service delivery that reinforces establishments and add to the adequacy and efficiencies of a nation’s developmental activities. Public sector reform of which civil service reform is a subset is one of the critical elements that strengthens institutions and contribute to the effectiveness and efficiencies of a country’s public sector leading to developmental activities (Zazay, 2015). Kwaghga (2010) characterized the civil service as a collection of men and ladies who utilized their capacities on a non-political basis as ordered by the positions which they occupy in the bureaucracy, fundamentally, they are charged to render basic social services, and also plan and execute the approaches of the government. Civil service as a body ought to be neutral in administering their assigned obligations as far governance is concerned.

Civil service reform is an activity that enhances the proficiency, efficiency, refined skill, representativity and democratic character of a civil service, which is premised on the enhancement of better public service delivery of depended public goods and services, along these lines advancing accountability, which is one of the elements of good governance (Rao, 2013). As indicated by Repucci (2014) civil service reform is one of the most obstinate yet important challenges for governments and their supporters today.

Mutahaba and Kiragu (2002) asserted that the force that propelled the wave of Public Sector Reform (PSR) in Africa, just like the case in other developing nations, emerged out of the macroeconomic and financial reforms that were introduced and supported by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Unlike the first wave of reform that was instituted by the World bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) which was entrenched in the Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs), as was asserted by Mutahaba and Kiragu (2002,) in the case of Liberia, several years of civil upheaval in Liberia decimated the agency and demolished the merit instituted recruiting framework by disregarding standards and methods of employment thus recruiting unprofessional individuals of different warring factions that exacerbated the civil decadence. As the result of an unprofessional system, the civil service was evident by a disorganized service delivery that negatively affected the full implementation of policies and programs, consequently leading to inadequate service delivery in Liberia (Nyemah, 2009).

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