By Mathew K. Jallow

       The purpose of this research study is to investigate the reasons for the failure to establish fully functioning democratic systems of government in Africa over the past half century. During the early years of independence, democratic institutions and practices were established across the continent, but a disconnection between the governing and the governed soon emerged causing widespread disillusionment among a mostly poor and impoverished population. As a result, civil unrest, manifesting in the form of workers and union uprisings and strikes, ushered in an era of military coups that led to the ousting of democratically elected governments. The ascendancy of the military regimes caused hopes to rise, but reality soon set in as the new rulers began to purge the ranks of the government and civil society of elements loyal to the ousted civilian regimes. The full bane of military rule began to gradually unfold as the militaries, threatened by their tenuous hold on power, began the systematic arrest, detention, torture and murder of opponents of military rule. Democratic institutions that were established but not fully functional under the previous regimes were abandoned and eventually dismantled wholesale.  International human rights protocols, to which African countries are signatories, were abrogated, leading to the further erosion of the rights of Africans.  The repression of the press, rampant and chronic corruption and lack of accountability, which became the trademark of the military regimes, continues to linger on in varying degrees in most African countries.

    One of the primary objectives of this study is to articulate ways in which Africa governments can establish fully functioning democratic institutions for the benefit of their people. Since the study is designed to investigate the reasons for the failure to establish working and entrenched democratic institutions, the findings of this report may help facilitate the reversal of the failed trends and governance practices that have existed over the past half-century. As mentioned earlier, the failure to establish good governance across Africa relates to the lack of accountability, rampant corruption, abuse of human rights, murders, tortures, repression of the free press, as well as the politicization of the military and the civil service. At the end of the day, the hope is that this research may benefit its readers and other consumers of information by identify the reasons for the failure of governments across Africa to achieve social and economic development in their respective countries. Additionally, the study is intended to educate African governments and peoples on the dichotomist relationship between democracy and development, and to identify what African regimes must accomplish to achieve the development that has eluded Africa for so long.

                 ( Red area is Sub- Saharan Africa)

                             Introduction

     This is a study of the public bureaucracies in sub-Saharan African countries.  It is by design a broad study geographically, because sub-Saharan African countries have similar bureaucratic practices and modus operandi. This similarity is a phenomenon, and the result of Africa’s shared cultural values which predate colonialism. The study focuseson how the public bureaucracies throughout sub-Saharan Africa have impeded, rather than promoted the introduction and institutionalization of democracy and democratic values, with the objective of promoting good governance and socio-economic development.

    Since the attainment of political independence over fifty years ago, African countries have experienced an overwhelming increase in the number of their bureaucrats. This is because after gaining political independence, mostly from England and France, newly independent African countries moved very rapidly to replace departing colonial administrators with native-born bureaucrats.  In most instances, the newly installed administrators had only secondary level education, and had previously held only junior and middle level administrative positions under the colonial administrations. Most therefore lacked the knowledge and the skills of the departing colonialists. The process of replacing colonial administrators with poorly educated native-born was aptly referred to as Africanization. This rapid Africanization was responsible for the prodigious growth of the public bureaucracies throughout Africa, and gave rise to a new breed of influential class of administrators.  In a clear departure from the colonial administrative practices, the new bureaucrats, apart from increasing in number, aspired to a higher social and economic status. Consequently, they began to acquire a special corporate interest in their positions, and moved to consolidate their hold on power for the purpose of accumulating capital and wealth. In time, the self-interest exhibited by the new ruling class caused a chasm to develop between the governing and the governed. This schism constituted a redefinition of Max Weber’s concept of bureaucracy in which the public is the beneficiary of public goods and services. A new African tradition soon emerged in which only the few privileged class benefited from resources of the state. Thus, in most countries in Africa, governments are perceived by the ruling elite as a vehicle to rob and terrorize their own people. Some social scientists have described African bureaucrats as being artificial, comprising degreed and non-degreed bandits who are out of touch with the people, operate through deception and abuse of power, and are perennially locked in combat with them. The new administrative systems that emerged out of the post-independence African experience defined new governance rules that observed no rule of law, no accountability, and preside over chaotic government institutions. This gave rise to the tragedy in which government institutions became the properties of the ruling class, and this not only precluded the institutionalization of good governance, it ensured that the bureaucracies ran predatory states that subverted social and economic development aspirations of poor majority. Consequently, today, corruption, embezzlement, capital flight, increased poverty, and tribalism due to poor management practices, are sucking the continent deep into the vortex of administrative failures, internal conflict, and increasing violent implosions. The lack of accountability and transparency has continued to exacerbate the problems of poor governance, adding to the absence of proper planning and the lack of skilled, knowledgeable and dedicated public service administrators which has ensured that open and endemic corruption is bankrupting African countries and creating a climate that lends itself to the emergence of mass social unrest.

    In an effort to put corruption in Africa on the spotlight and in context, Transparency International study of 2005, lamented the poor performance of black African countries on the Corruption Progress Index (CPI). The survey implicated corruption as the major cause of poverty in Africa, and the single major impediment to good governance, establishment of democratic institutions and the securing of social stability. The Global Forum On Fighting Corruption, another social watchdog, put it succinctly when the organization declared that corruption threatened democracy, economic growth and the rule of law.  Bureaucracies in African are not responsive to the needs of their citizens, nor do they function in a manner consistent with the establishment and institutionalization of democracy and good governance. And due to the lack of a sense of country, bureaucrats and civil service personnel focus on enriching themselves by looting the resources meant to bring change and development in their countries and for their people.