Abstract

The current need however to empower local councils and the realization that local communities are capable of identifying and prioritizing their real needs has boasted the drive for decentralization in Cameroon. In a bid in attaining its policy objectives of promoting development, good governance and democracy at the local level, since the 2010 financial year, the state has been devolving some of its responsibilities to local Councils.

This study therefore seeks to assess the constraints in these transfers of competences to some local Authorities in Fako division while evaluating the extent to which this process has been able to attain its policy objectives in Fako division. The Public choice theory, also referred to as the school of economics is an approach to political sciences that uses methods and tools of economics to explain how politics and government works.

The Structural Functionalist theory ensures a functional relationship among structures in a state, especially in public policy processes like decentralization processes which need a functional collaborative relationship of state institutions for their success.

For the attainment of these objectives and with the usage of the stratified random sampling technique, a set of questionnaires were administered to the citizenry in the Limbe 1, and Buea municipalities and structured interviews were conducted with the Mayors, administrative officials, and some civil society organizations in these municipalities.

Using frequency tables, charts, graphs and chi-squared tests, three hypotheses were tested in the study and major findings revealed that although the state seems to be devolving some competences and resources within the ambit of the decentralization process, there is still the absence of a genuine political commitment in implementing all the facets of the decentralization policy coupled with the inadequate co-option of local communities in the decentralization process.

This study therefore recommends a functional and genuine political commitment on the part of the central government manifested and made practical with the establishment of a timetable for devolution and the allocation of a fix quota of the state budget to Local Authorities and for the financing of the decentralization process.

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