Good Governance: What Should Be The Foundation?

Making decisions and implementing them to deal with the needs of citizens is a major concern of every government. Of course, citizens are not pleased with a government which is characterized by unjust and un-enforced legal systems, arbitrary policy-making and widespread corruption. Instead, they prefer a government that would not only help to improve their living conditions but also allow them to have a voice in the decisions that are made. Unfortunately, some people do not know that good record keeping is the pivot of good governance.

Transparency is very crucial in good governance. Citizens trust their governments and become more concerned about their civic responsibilities when they realize that decisions taken by the government are open and they follow laid down rules and regulations. However, this is meaningless if proper records are not kept. For instance, how do we know the exact decisions that were taken, the procedure, the people involved and how the decisions should be enforced if there are no records? Probity and accountability are also very critical to good governance. However, without records, it would be difficult to hold a government accountable for whatever it says or does.

In developing countries in particular, the efficient management of the public sector is considered as a key factor in economic development. It is therefore heart-warming that in Ghana, we have a Ministry for the Public Sector Reforms. The fact, however, is that the ability to retrieve information about government services is a criterion for a successful public sector management. When programs cannot be delivered because of in- adequate information systems, the public stands to suffer because all aspects of the public service including health, education, pensions and human rights depend on records.

A good government is expected to protect and respect the rights and entitlements of its citizens. However, its ability to do is based on the quality of the policies, standards and practices employed for the care of the relevant records. For instance, retired workers should not suffer the ordeal of “go and come” when it comes to the working out of their entitlements simply because their personal files could not be traced. Also, there should not be delays in administering justice with the excuse that the relevant dockets are not “readily available” since justice delayed is justice denied.

In government, improved human resource is very critical as far as good policy management is concerned. For instance, when it comes to performance-related human resource management, the availability of accurate and complete information about the past and present performance of staff is very necessary to be able to either reward hard working staff or penalize poor performing staff. How could such appraisal be carried out successfully if we do not have the relevant records on staff?

Every good government is determined to improve the living conditions of its people. However, this could be hindered if the government’s financial and other resources, which could have been used to provide social amenities, are rather used on peace-keeping. We could prevent such disputes, for instance, by keeping proper historic and other relevant records in order to know persons who have the right to gain ascendancy over thrones and skins.

One of the major reasons for the stagnation of the economies of many African countries could be traced to corrupt governments and officials. By keeping proper records on every activity and transaction, we could easily tell who did what, where, and when, thereby checking the canker.

We can not deny the fact that the private sector contributes immensely to national development. In fact, some people even describe it as the engine of growth as far as economic development is concerned. Unfortunately, information is hardly thought of as the oil which is used to lubricate that engine. It is even more important to remember that the engine is likely to break down if we adulterate the major components of the oil, which are records. In fact, weaknesses in government’s record keeping systems could adversely affect the performance of the sector. For instance if records are misplaced or lost and as a result it takes a government agency several months to reply to a correspondence of an investor, then we could guess the consequences as far as investment promotion is concerned.

In fact, the importance of record-keeping can not be overemphasized. Unfortunately, some people still look down on the records management profession. For instance, some heads of organizations transfer staff who they consider to be “problematic” or “useless” from other departments to registries and archives. I once heard a Supervisor warning one of his subordinates to change his lazy attitude towards work otherwise he would transfer him to the Archives. The implication of the statement is that the Records/Archives Department is considered as a “dumping ground”. What a pity! The gentleman was ignorant of the fact that his intended action could result in loss of the Company’s very important documents and leakage of classified information to unauthorized people.

How come untrained and unqualified persons are not assigned the duties of doctors, teachers, engineers, social workers, lawyers, nurses, pilots, accountants and other professionals yet some people think it is possible in the case of archivists and records managers? Or is the profession considered so cheap?

There are quite a number of unemployed records management professionals (Diploma, First Degree and Master’s Degree holders) with excellent training from the Department of Information Studies, University of Ghana, looking for jobs. Companies, organizations and institutions should not hesitate to tap the rich potentials of these professionals.

By this statement, I am not suggesting that only people with academic qualifications in archives administration (Although it is desirable) should be made to manage records. After all, I know a number of people who have not been to the university to study archives administration but they have received the necessary training in records management on the job and they are performing creditably. My point is that round pegs should not be put in square holes as far as records management is concerned.

As a nation, we should be serious with record keeping if indeed we want to achieve our aim of becoming a middle-income level country through good governance.

Views expressed by the author(s) do not necessarily reflect those of GhanaHomePage.