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Juggling Administrative Institutions: Local State Actors and the Management of Urban Space in Kumasi, Ghana

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Abstract

Ghana’s local governments are arenas for autonomous policy decisions following its 1988 decentralization program. These structures evolve and regulate economic and physical development plans in their jurisdictions. To ensure local level participation, institution building within the local self-governments has been actively undertaken, and in metropolitan areas, regulatory authorities for physical development have been reformed and decentralized to sub-metropolitan district structures. Despite the institutional changes, the challenge of unauthorized physical development persists and threatens reserved spaces designated for public use, conservation, and recreational purposes. Given the complex mix of formal rules and practical norms within these structures, this paper explains how institutional reforms within the local self-governments work rather in favor of individuals’ interests; the changes allow not only local state actors but also private developers to juggle the various institutional frames and maneuver their way through to erect unauthorized structures in the Kumasi metropolis. Based on empirical data from the local state administrative structures in Kumasi, the paper shows how the interests of actors together with the multiple institutional rules shape residents’ options in their pursuit of physical projects in the urban space and, thus, enhancing the emergence of unauthorized settlement patterns in the metropolis. The paper, therefore, challenges the dominant notion on local state institutional reforms that links them to improved delivery of local public goods in the Global South because, in most cases, the change programs are severely limited by existing institutional interests and practices.

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Notes

  1. In this paper, unauthorized structures refer to housing, building, and construction works that flout the building and planning regulations in the jurisdiction of a given local government. The term is therefore used inter-changeably herein with allied terms such as informal structures and informal settlements to refer to the same phenomenon.

  2. These claims should be situated in the context of changing demography, urbanization, and housing needs. In the early post-independence era, e.g., in 1970, the population was over 8.5 million with a housing deficit of 736,657 compared with the current population of 24 million and a housing deficit of over two million (Adarkwa 2012: 18). There is a persistent tension between city authorities and urban residents regarding service provision and enforcement of building laws in unauthorized settlement in suburbs including Dakwadwom, Akwatia Line in Kumasi (Abunyewah et al. 2014), and Old Fadama in Accra (Yeboah and Obeng-Odoom 2010; Afenah 2012). Apart from slums, other unauthorized structures spring up in areas designated for public activities such as parks, recreational centers, etc. as well as the general depletion of the green spaces in urban locations.

  3. The reforms have been supported by the 1992 Constitution, the Local Government Act, 1993 (Act 462), the Civil Service Law, 1994 (PNDCL 327), the National Development Commission Act of 1994 (Act 479), the National Development Planning Systems Act, 1994 (Act 480), and the District Assemblies Common Fund Act, 1993 (Act 327). All laws, i.e., decrees and legislations used in this paper, are cited as passed and have been sourced from the Local Government Ministry and the Parliament of Ghana.

  4. The term ‘district’ designates a geographic precinct over which a DA exercises its jurisdiction. Other eponyms to the DA based on population and degree of urbanization are Metropolitan Assembly (more than 250,000 people) and Municipal Assembly (more than 95,000 people).

  5. Even though the regional coordinating councils form the apex of the local government structure, they only have supervisory roles; only the DAs have the mandate to make autonomous policies for the local administration.

  6. Lowndes (2005), Lowndes and Leach (2004), Connelly (2011), and Scharpf (2008) use this approach in studies of local political institutional change and outcomes in the Global North.

  7. These approaches focus on the global influences of urban space that leads to commodification of land and the disenfranchising of the poor. They thus argue for strategies that resist neo-liberal globalization and seek more rights for urban dwellers.

  8. Lefebvre posits differences and conflicting construct of urban space by the state (based on size, location, area, and profit) vis-à-vis individuals’ construct of urban space (a place they want to live). Harvey, on his part, argues that the intersection of the interests of local governments and the private sector especially real estate produces discriminatory practices in housing markets toward the poor which reflects their specific choice and location in urban environments.

  9. The larger study also analyzed regulatory practices in the suburbs of Kumasi including Patasi, Danyame, Nhyiaso, Ahwodwo, and Amakom which used to have abundant parks and gardens but which have been encroached upon and depleted.

  10. These residents lived in communities administered by two of the study sub-metro councils: Manhyia and Oforikrom, and the clustering was based on the designation of formal and informal structures given by the KMA.

  11. We use the term “technocrats” to describe civil servants with specific technical skills such as engineers, spatial planners, etc.

  12. Land ownership and leasing in the jurisdiction of the metropolis, like other places in Ghana, is mainly in the hands of chiefs and traditional authorities. This allows private developers to start developing their lands before attempting to secure building permits. Some of these chiefs with no idea in town planning could allocate plots in waterways, nature reserve, etc. to developers.

  13. There are debates on the rationale for the creation of new districts and substructures as patronage resources given the ambiguities around their operations. Some researchers claim that they are used to fulfill electoral promises and not for decentralized development policy making per se (Gilbert et al. 2013; Green 2010; Ayee 2012).

  14. Legislative instrument.

  15. National Democratic Congress (NDC) and New Patriotic Party (NPP) are major political parties in Ghana. In 2007, Kwamena Ahwoi, a former minister of local government in the NDC heavily criticized the LI 1805 enacted for 10 sub-metro councils, and it was obvious that the system would be manipulated once the NDC government came back to power. This was spurred further by the elevation of one of the 10 sub-metro councils to a municipal status.

  16. Thomi (2000) shows that residents hold some negative perception towards the local states and this attitude stems from what Crook (2003) points out as local residents’ disappointment regarding the inability of the DAs to address their development needs.

  17. A characteristic feature of spatial development in the metropolis is the “Stop work. Produce permit by order, KMA” phenomenon. It is not unusual for the building inspection teams to extort money from private developers whilst they process the latter’s permit application or from those who do not have and never thought of getting one.

  18. Corruption in African bureaucracies is sometimes striking (Collier 2000), but its measurement remains contested. See for example Cobham’s (2013) criticism of Transparency International’s corruption perception index (CPI) which he argues reflects only the biases of powerful elites and not how ordinary people see it. This, he argues, inhibits countries from devising appropriate policies to address corruption. Despite those criticisms with measurement, we, just like the critics, do not doubt the consequences of corruption on constituents and users of the public institutions.

  19. Stool lands are those lands outside the domain of the state’s bureaucracy but administered by customary law. However, once acquired, physical developments on it are regulated by the state.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Development Sociology, University of Bayreuth, Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 3, 95445, Bayreuth, Germany

    Matthew Sabbi

  2. Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK

    Collins Adjei Mensah

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Correspondence to Matthew Sabbi.

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Sabbi, M., Mensah, C.A. Juggling Administrative Institutions: Local State Actors and the Management of Urban Space in Kumasi, Ghana. Urban Forum 27, 59–78 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12132-015-9262-8

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