De-politicisation of the civil service: Impacts and implications on the Gambia's bureaucracy

Years after the introduction of centralized governance in Africa, many bureaucracies still exhibited the inefficient traits obtained through colonialism. These characteristics prevent the effective performance of the governance system in many Sub-Saharan nations. The issue of enhancing Gambia's public service performance has been a subject of debate. To a very large extent, the context through which effective performance of the governance system can be accomplished is dependent on the government's capability to establish policies capable of supporting good public service performance. However, the Gambia's civil service is faced with incompetent workers, ill-equipped government bureaus as well as political interference in its public administrative matters. Service delivery in the Gambia has remained subpar despite numerous reform initiatives formulated to improve the efficiency of the public sector. This thesis incorporates an evaluation technique in assessing the problems confronting Gambia's public sector in terms of successful service delivery within the perspective of Max Weber's bureaucratic theory. This paper identifies, among other issues character principle, favoritism, partisanship, corruption, tribalism, nepotism, and other primal issues as reasons impeding effective and ethical management of the public sector in The Gambia.