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Local governance expert, Prof. Kwamena Ahwoi, has called for the development of a local government-specific code of conduct and ethics for all local government practitioners.
He stressed that such a move would ensure that there was ethical conduct and enhanced professionalism in local government.
Additionally, Prof. Ahwoi, a former Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, said the codification of conduct and ethical values for local government would help to produce public officials who were incorruptible, accountable and adhered to leadership of integrity at all levels of governance.
“Corruption is one single impediment to the socio-economic development of many African countries and a major hindrance to sustainable socio-economic development, with devastating impact on poor communities.
“The ethical local government practitioner stands in the middle of this challenge, and what he or she does or does not do about it is a testimony to his or her value as a person in whom the community has reposed its trust,” he said.
He stated this at the Professor S.N. Woode Biennial Memorial Lecture held by the Institute of Local Government Studies (ILGS) in Accra last Friday.
The lecture, which was held on the theme: “Building capacity for professionalism and ethical conduct in Ghana’s local governance system,” brought together stalwarts in the local government and public administration space.
Among the key personalities at the lecture were the Minister of Local Government, Chieftaincy, and Religious Affairs, Ahmed Ibrahim; the Director of the ILGS, Prof. Nicholas Awortwi; the Chairman of the ILGS council, Dr William Kofi Ahiadzie; a former Rector of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), Prof. Stephen Adei; the Chairman of the Public Services Commission (PSC), Professor Victor Kwame Agyeman; and a retired Supreme Court Judge, Professor Justice Samuel Kofi Date-Baah.
Prof Ahwoi said building the capacity of practitioners in the local government sector to effectively deliver public goods required mainstreaming the decentralised training of trainers programme into the training regimes by local government.
The local government space is so vast that we cannot rely on training institutions such as the ILGS to do all the requisite training at a central location; so we need more trainers across the country,” he said.
He added that there must be regional capacity building centres to focus on training the staff of the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs) on ethical standards and professionalism in local governance.
Prof. Ahwoi stressed that all capacity-building programmes must emphasise the importance of ethics in local governance.
“They must stress that local governance is at the forefront of the country’s governance architecture, the governance structure that is closest to the people, and its practitioners must therefore present themselves as ethical role models before the people with whom they interact,” he said.
The local government expert added that the capacity building for ethical conduct must be extended to all actors in the local government space, including assembly members, urban, town, zonal and area council committee members, unit committee members and other professional groups.
Again, he underscored the need for various representations in the local governance space to be roped into a sustained campaign to ensure professionalism and ethical conduct in the profession.
The Director of the ILGS, Prof. Nicholas Awortwi, observed that within the context of the government's reset agenda, it was important for a mindset change, instilling ethics, and promoting professionalism in the public service.
He stressed that the time had come to ensure that public administrators whose capacity was ethically built and nurtured were deployed both at the national and local levels.
The Chairman of the ILGS council, Dr William Kofi Ahiadzie, said the public sector had a key role to play in the government's policy prescription of "resetting Ghana for jobs, accountability, and prosperity", for which reason public institutions, particularly at the local level, needed to be reset to function as expected.
He said as the country continued to grapple with resource constraints for development, ethicality and leadership of integrity were required to tackle widespread breaches in the use of public resources.
