Corruption can be reduced through social accountability

Uganda has since 1993, adopted the policy of decentralisation which entails delivery of services by local authorities as detailed in the Local Governments’ Act, (1997) and amendments thereto.

Government continues to spend billions of money annually to improve service delivery both at national and local levels through both national and local budgets. In line with these budgets, the central and local governments provide various services to the public under programme priority areas (PPAs) of: health, education, agriculture, safe water, road infrastructure and governance that constitute the social development agenda.

Uganda has since 1993, adopted the policy of decentralisation which entails delivery of services by local authorities as detailed in the Local Governments’ Act, (1997) and amendments thereto.

All these policy-legal regimes are to enhance delivery of services mainly to rural populations in both quantity and quality taking on districts and sub-counties as critical service points.
In 1988/1989, the Government decided to carry out the first National Service Delivery Survey, (NSDS). This was followed by the Sentinel Community Surveillance Survey of 1996; and subsequently another NSDS co-ordinated by Ministry of Public Service, (2000) and, the next one in 2004.

The areas taken on included: transport services, governance issues, water and sanitation, health services, education, agriculture and veterinary extension services as well as access, use and satisfaction with facilities and services.

The purpose of NSDS as a baseline survey and, a significant data generating exercise is for enhancement of the following:
Planning for both national and local levels, resource allocation, as well as monitoring the performance of service delivery by local governments.

Although the Government of Uganda has spent considerable amounts of financial resources on service delivery, both at local and national levels, in terms of quality and quantity, the outcomes have been insufficient in some respects.

Cases and incidences of insufficient service delivery and non-service delivery in key public utilities are attributed to a large extent, corruption due to inadequate public servants facilitation and the public’s failure to hold the leadership accountable.

This is worsened by Uganda’s inadequate civic education. Much of Uganda’s civic education is centered on voter education, neglecting other important areas that would improve governance, social service provisioning and realisation of MDGs.

According to a Policy Note on Social Accountability in Uganda, (2008) prepared for the World Bank, accountability in Uganda is of various mechanisms: political such as constitutional provisions, separation of powers between the Executive and the Legislative.

These mechanisms are formally referred to as “supply-side” of accountability or more popularly, vertical methodologies of accountability. The biggest disadvantage is that, to be effective, they generally require that citizens and civil society “demand” accountability through various forms of civic engagement, referred to as social accountability.

Uganda’s typically “top-bottom” approach to accountability, from service providers to development partners and citizens; through reports and audits does not effectively engage civil society and the general populace. Resultantly, the consequences have been the following:
There are a few opportunities for civil society and end-users to systematically exercise their voice on effectiveness, quality, timeliness, quantity, reliability, efficacy and equity of service delivery.
There is lack of capacity by grassroots, civil society organisations and some elements of the political society to hold leadership accountable has resulted into inadequate service delivery because of absence of such a “pressure -zone impact”; Once leaders find a way of “muddling through” the top-bottom accountability modalities, they may not feel duly bothered by citizenry; who are ultimately, the end users;
The fundamental impact therefore, evidently and glaringly may be neglect and a downward spiral of poor service delivery in quality and quantity; The development partners and government of Uganda lose value for money in the process;
Uganda, like most of the Sub Saharan Africa (SSA) is not likely to attain most of these MDG goals by 2015
A higher level of civic consciousness to hold leaders accountable is requisite.

One of the recommendations of the Uganda Africa Peer Review Mechanism on achieving sustainable development and poverty reduction is the need to enforce accountability.

Accordingly, this calls for integration of both top-bottom and bottom-top accountabilities for efficient and effective outputs. CSOs and the media are good at monitoring development projects.
There is need to enhance competence and citizen participation, dialogue, budget tracking and monitoring as well as reporting systems in public policy-making, participatory budgeting, public expenditure tracking, citizens’ monitoring and evaluation of public service delivery vehicles as well as advocacy campaigns.

Mr Mujuni is a legal & policy analysis expert.

benardmujuni@gmail.com