PUBLIC PARTICIPATION AND SOCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY IN LOCAL GOVERNANCE IN GHANA

Public participation is crucial for social accountability and is required to promote good governance at the local government level. However, genuine forms of popular participation that greatly empower citizens appear illusory. This chapter presents findings on how and the extent to which local participation and social accountability help promote an effective local government system in Ghana. It examines the nature of public participation and how it engenders social accountability at the local government level, the Bekwai Municipal Assembly. Although various mechanisms exist for public participation, greater forms of tokenism prevail. This threatens the effectiveness of these mechanisms in governance processes such that people’s voices are not incorporated into policy outputs and decisions. By examining the nature of local participation in the public service delivery and accountability mechanisms of the local government, this chapter’s findings address the common gap in the study of decentralisation in Ghana that seems to omit a systematic enquiry into the citizen’s participation and their role in ensuring social accountability in policy implementation.