Abstract

The research intends to examine the ROLE OF COUNCIL IN DEVELOPMENT case study BUEA COUNCIL (how it influences the development of the Buea municipality and Cameroon as a whole. The objectives of the study are to evaluate the effectiveness of development.

The research method involves primary and secondary sources as means of data collection and it also adopted both descriptive and analytical research designs base on questionnaires to gain an in-depth understanding of human resource management and employee performance.

Questionnaires were used and a sample size of 40 respondents was drawn from the staff using a simple random sampling technique. Findings revealed that recruitment, selection, and compensation of employees turn to influence their performance positively and this was based on the results obtained using the Pearson correlation coefficient.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1. Background to the Study

This chapter brings out the background to the study, statement of the problem, research objectives, research questions, research hypotheses, relevance of the study, thematic spatial and temporal delimitations.

The theme of the 2004 World Development Report is summarized by its opening paragraph in the following quote: “Too often, services fail poor people – in access, in quantity, in quality But the fact that there are strong examples where services do work means governments and citizens can do better. How? By putting poor people at the center of service provision: by enabling them to monitor and discipline service providers, by amplifying their voice in policymaking, and by strengthening the incentives for providers to serve the poor”

From the mid-1980s onwards, a -wave of decentralization reforms which are intended to, give local councils adequate powers to engage their own development with regards to their communities swept across the developing world.

A wide range of governments embarked on state reform processes aimed at transferring responsibilities, resources, and authority from higher to lower levels of government. Each country followed its own trajectory related to historic legacies, geographic features, political factors, and prevailing socio-economic conditions and culture.

The first president of the United -Republic of Tanzania, Julius Nyerere, made a powerful statement in 1968 on the need for participation of the people in communities for development. He stated that: “Development is the participation of people in a mutual learning experience involving themselves, their local resources, external change agents and outside resources.

People are not developed; they can only develop themselves by participation and cooperative activities which affect their wellbeing. People are not being developed when they are herded like animals into new ventures”. In this statement, people are understood to be an important instrument in their own development. Actual and sustainable development can only be obtained by making the people who benefit an integral part of the development process. This includes involvement in the decision-making and in the phase of implementation.

Access to quality education, advanced sanitation services, good road networks, portable water supplies, and health care amongst individuals and nations constitute a problem. It is widely acknowledged that significant changes in the quality of life of the poor can be registered through popular participation in decision-making at local levels. This partly explains why the concept of decentralization has become a significant dimension of political and administrative reform in many developing countries since the late 1980s.

In 1987, the Head of State President Paul Biya, stated ex-cathedra that: “The municipal councils are some sort of local assemblies where people debate problems of local interest The first thing that I expect of these municipal councils is that it should first of all be a school of democracy where people discuss concrete problems: can we construct pipe-borne water here? Can we construct a road there?

It is a democratic school It is a school of management People learn from there what a budget is. They learn from there that if needs are unlimited, the means unfortunately are not. It is necessary therefore to establish priorities. I expect the reinforcement of the democratic spirit, the sense of managing public property”

The basic underlying local developmental logic of is that local institutions can better discern and are more likely to respond to local needs and aspirations. According to public choice logic, better matching of services to needs and preferences follow from local authorities and providers being closer to their clients and therefore having better access to local information.

The policy practice of local administration accelerates a two-way flow of information between the local government and the local people, and thus favors the local development process. Local service provision is expected to enhance the quality and efficiency of service provision through improved governance and resource allocation.

This study is intended to assess the role played by the Buea council in the provision of development infrastructures.

1.2. Statement of the Problem

Today in Cameroon, like elsewhere with local governance ideologies, the government development programs are carried out in a decentralized manner where most of the development initiatives have to originate mainly from the localities. This is in view of the fact that all governments have a duty and a responsibility to ensure that the wellbeing of their citizens is improved.

Cognizance of the fact that councils encourage local representation to be responsive in the provision of local needs, most at times local government structures are restricted by low institutional and human resource capacity for development planning.

In the real sense and on the global scale, local authorities at the level of the councils have as duties and responsibilities, the provision of education, potable water, and health infrastructure and services. However, these services are provided in Buea centrally by the different ministries in charge represented at local levels by the different delegations.

These ministries outline arrangements for service delivery and infrastructure provision at the local level, which do not necessarily coincide with the arrangements of the plan of the council or locality concerned therefore making coordination of infrastructure provision difficult.

Though the decentralized planning system places a clear emphasis on the mobilization of local resources for development, however, it is difficult to determine if a significant proportion of the internally generated funds are spent on development projects in Buea. This situation, therefore, compels the municipal council to depend on the central government transfers and donor interventions through irregular, time-consuming and inadequate funding dependency.

It is obvious that functions of the officials will need to be financed and hence the local governance system demands that the central government should not only devolve roles or functions and responsibilities but ensure that the elected officials are given adequate finances to implement whatever projects they identify to be necessary for the development of the municipality.

Although the elected officials at the level of the council play a major role in the local developmental planning system, there is still an inadequate human resource base to perform the various tasks. With this, we see that because of the limited experiences of the local government structures in the operationalization of the system, the potentials of the development planning which seeks to enhance the provision of socio-economic infrastructure in the Buea municipality are yet to be fully achieved. why…………

Based on the above problems common in most Cameroonian towns in general and Buea in particular, the study sought to assess the role played by the Buea Council in the provision of health, sanitation, transport, water, education and other development infrastructures in the Buea municipality.

Given the above-stated problem, there is, therefore, a need to address the following objectives for a better understanding.

1.3. Research Questions

1.3.1. General Question

The specific questions for the study were:

1. Does the Buea council have sufficient funds for the development of the Buea municipality?
2. To what extent does the Buea council engage in human development?
3. What are the infrastructural development project Buea council carry out?

1.4. Research Objectives

1.4.1. General Objective

The general research objective for the study was to demonstrate the role played by the Buea council with regard to the provision of development infrastructures in the area of study.

1.4.2. Specific Objectives

The specific objectives for the study were:

1. To examine whether Buea Council has sufficient funds for the development of the municipality
2. To analyze the extent to which Buea Council engages in human development
3. To access the infrastructural development project of the Buea Council in the Buea municipality