National water and sewerage cooperation.
Is a government institution established with the mandate of supplying cleaning and safe water for both domestic and industrial use. NWSC was formed by Decree No. 34 in 1972 to serve the urban areas of Kampala, Entebbe, and Jinja. In 1995, NWSC was re-organized under the NWSC Statute. The company was given more authority and autonomy and the mandate to operate and provide water and sewerage services in areas entrusted to it, on a sound commercial and viable basis. As of October 2016, the following cities and towns receive services from NWSC.
In 2011, NWSC began implementing a program to improve water supply to the Kampala Metropolitan Area that includes Kampala City, Wakiso District, Mukono District, Nansana, Ssabagabo, and Kira. The program, which will cost €212 million, is financed by the government of Uganda (€34 million), KfW (€20 million grant), the European Investment Bank (€75 million loan), the French Development Agency (€75 million loan), and the European Union Infrastructure Trust Fund (€8 million grant)
New Public Management (NPM) is an approach to running public service organizations used in government agencies and public services, both at local and national levels. This term was first introduced by academics in the UK and Australia to describe the approach developed during the 1980s, as part of an effort to make public services more straightforward and to improve its efficiency by using a private sector management model. New Public Management (NPM) is generally seen as an approach in public administration that applies knowledge and experience gained in the world of management and other disciplines to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of public service performance in modern bureaucracies. New public management focuses on public sector management that is performance-oriented, not policy-oriented. Lately, public sector organizations have often been described as unproductive, inefficient, of low quality, and lacking in innovation or creativity.
According to Suwandi, Arifianti, & Rizal, (2019) New Public Management (NPM) is an approach in public administration that applies knowledge and experience gained in the world of management and other disciplines to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of public service performance in modern bureaucracies. New public management focuses on public sector management that is performance-oriented, not policy-oriented. The implementation of Good Corporate Governance in managing a company is very important because it can directly provide clear instructions in making appropriate and responsible decisions and enable safer management of the company so that it can increase the value and trust of partners or the community.
According to Nielsen, & Hedegaard Winther, (2019) The reorganization of public administration (PA) is targeting the size, costs, and objectives of the PA. Public labor is often downsized (e.g., through layoffs) that supports externalization. Public action was stopped by incorporating market principles and professional style personal management in bureaucratic organizations.
NPM has been accompanied by a process of decentralization and devolution in accordance with the principle of vertical subsidiarity, where agencies closer to citizens are considered capable of framing problems and implementing solutions. However, managerial, if not entrepreneurial, decentralization can negatively impact social participation, especially in social policy, while social risk can be delegated without adequate resources (Barberis et al., 2019).
Characteristics of New Public Management
Although principals can be identified as features. However, for your convenience, I have highlighted some of the following features of the new public management from the above principles, (Reiter, & Klenk, 2019).
Citizen’s empowerment; Empowerment of citizens is one of the major features of New Public Management. NPM assures citizen’s freedom of choice. It secures quality services to the citizens. Healthy competition among the service and product’s sectors allow citizens to choose their service and products according to their needs and choice.
Decentralization; NPM focuses on the decentralization of power from rigid, hierarchical bureaucratic to flexible and dynamic managerial support systems.
Restructuring of Government organization or sector; New public management restructures the governmental organization or sectors. The government divides each of its sectors into smaller units and assigns responsibilities to the private sector through contracts.
Goal-Orientation; Its main purpose is to achieve specific goals. That is why NPM more emphasises on the outcomes rather than procedures and rules.
Cost Cutting and facilitates income growth; The main purpose of contracting out of governmental sectors is to reduce the cost of the government and secure maximum income of the government.
Managerial Support services; The main purpose of the managerial support services osto secure citizen’s quality service. For this reason the best talent from the market are hired by offering handsome salary, incentives and other benefits. NPM always suggests skill improving training programmes for getting maximum outcomes.
Secure better service to the citizens; It is already stated that the main purpose of implementing New Public management is to secure citizen’s quality services.
Evolution of Public Administration Reform
Increasing concern for PAR in developing countries derives from three main intellectual threads.
New public management a number of Anglo-Saxon countries (the UK, New Zealand, Australia, the United States and Canada) starting in the early 1980s, began implementing wide ranging reform programmes that provided both the model and the experience that could be applied in developing countries. NPM seeks to roll back the role of the state by applying private sector management principles to government organizations. The enthusiastic dissemination of this model to developing countries was seen by some as a new attempt to colonize development administration with a standardized, western approach to PAR. Nevertheless, the language of NPM, and the principles of client focus, decentralization, the separation of policy making from implementation, and the use of private partners for service delivery continues to inform current thinking about PAR.
Structural adjustment reforms , in the mid 1980s, efforts at reforming the public administration in developing countries, supported by the IFIs, focussed on reducing overall costs of the government, mainly through privatisation of state owned enterprises and reduction of the wage bill to bring government spending down to sustainable levels and free resources for other uses more beneficial to the overall economy. However, most of the public sector reforms supported through the SAPs have met with considerable resistance (not least because in many countries the public sector is the principal source of formal employment), and their implementation has rarely been successful
Transition from central planning to market economy, and from single party systems to multi-party democracies, The fall of the Soviet Union has persuaded governments of previously socialist countries to transform their economies to adhere more to market principles often linked to political reforms. In the 1990s, a large number of economies, especially in Central and Eastern Europe (but also in countries in South-East Asia) began this transition. This implied the reorientation of the system of public administration.
Recent trends in Public Administration Reform
In spite of the influential neo-liberal arguments of the 1980s and 1990s which sought to roll back the state, recent surveys find that citizens want state institutions that are democratic, efficient in the use of public resources, effective in delivering public goods, but also strong and capable of standing up to powerful global forces. People want the state and its public administration to act as a social and economic promoter, capable of ensuring equitable distribution of opportunities, sustainable management of resources and equitable access to opportunities (political, economic, social and cultural). An established public administration has been, arguably, far more vital to economic development in historical fact than either free elections or parliaments. In the LDCs and post conflict countries in particular, underdeveloped private sectors require the public administration to play a major role in the delivery of services and the provision of much needed economic infrastructure. But, most important of all, an established non-partisan civil service is vital to democracy as it makes it possible to have a peaceful and orderly political succession, and thus genuine pluralism.
In recent years public sector management is increasingly seen as more than just modernising state institutions and reducing civil service costs. It is also about fostering dynamic partnerships with the civil society and the private sector, to improve the quality of service delivery, enhance social responsibilities and ensure the broad participation of citizens in decision-making and feedback on public service performance.
Global outlook of new public administration approach
NPM-style reforms were originally intended to make the public sector work better and cost less (Hood, 2011). With this emphasis on cost-cutting and efficiency came a greater focus on service users as customers, and attempts to loosen up restrictive employment practices. All of this was to be achieved through reforms intended to make the public sector more ‘business-like’ and give managers more ‘freedom to manage’ (Osborne and Gaebler, 1993). However, critics have focused on the potential for NPM to cause service provision to be unevenly distributed across different social groups (Harrow, 2002). At the same time, the possibility that disaggregation and decentralization can disrupt and fragment established lines of accountability has been highlighted (Webb, 1991). Debates about the costs and benefits of NPM reforms in Europe have persisted throughout the past three decades (Christensen and Lægreid, 2010). NPM reforms and multiple outcomes across European countries. In doing so, we focus on five key structural and managerial reforms that have been prominent within central governments across Europe: downsizing (i.e. reforms aimed at cutting costs, through redundancies, closures, terminations and so on); agencification (i.e. reforms that create quasi-autonomous agencies in place of government ministries): contracting out (i.e. reforms that put public services out to competitive tender): customer orientation (i.e. reforms that increase communication between public service providers and users) and flexible employment practices (i.e. reforms that make civil service careers less restrictive and hierarchically organized).
Definition of New public reforms
New Public Management (NPM) is an approach in public administration that applies knowledge and experience gained in the world of management and other disciplines to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of public service performance in modern bureaucracies (Suwandi et al., 2019).
New public management approach has been adopted to enhance the implementation of Good Corporate Governance in managing a company is very important because it can directly provide clear instructions in making appropriate and responsible decisions and enable safer management of the company so that it can increase the value and trust of partners or the community.
Evolution of New public management approach in Uganda
The government of Uganda adopted new public management in order to enhance better management of the country key sectors by specifically reducing bureaucracy poor leadership and mismanagement. Reduction and control of staff numbers to improve salaries and conditions of service, improving central government efficiency, greater discretion over resources, and rooting out corruption were common motives. Civil service reforms in Uganda has been successful at addressing structural problems such as overstaffing and low pay, as well as strengthening basic administrative systems including personnel and payroll checks. They have been less effective at eradicating poverty and improving service delivery. New approaches in public management have been successful where they involve results-oriented management, performance budgeting, and delegation of control and decision-making within the public service. These reforms are more politically sensitive because of the potential loss of government control.
The following are the New public management approaches adopted by NWSC in the advancement of goals of the institution.
Standardized process in management of its ware houses this has made it easy for improved quality control, shorter delivery time, greater efficiency through the use of information and communication components like internets, satellites among others that enables tracking and tracing of the goods owned by NWSC during shipment as well as giving up to date information to the stock in the ware houses.
Simplified supply chain process of National water nd sewerage cooperation, The introduction of information and communication technology has not only simplified the logistics process but has also improved on the whole supply chain process including control over suppliers, improved process cycle time, close cooperation relationships, improved supply chain efficiency, raw materials on time for suppliers. The procurement process of National water and sewerage cooperation is fully automated.
Process Automation of the payment system, National water and sewerage cooperation has automated its payment system where the client can pay for water through use of mobile money and online banking system platforms.
National water and sewerage cooperation uses Bar code system(Cite author who talks about it)to enable it safely manage the stores system. Bar code and scanners which represents a series of alphanumerical characters, bar code readers to interpret bar code symbology, and bar code printers to reliably and accurately print bar codes on labels, cartons, and/or picking /shipping documents. This review is included here because bar code systems are the foundation for many paperless warehousing systems, but the review is meant only as a brief introduction to bar code system. In logistics, bar coding is useful in receiving inbound materials. This helps in quick and accurate data entry, faster checking and clearing of shipments, automatic tracking of the shipments throughout the logistics.
There is a greatly reduced product delivery time by National water procurement department when a specific department places an order this indicates that there is efficiency in response to both the departmental and client need.
The ability by National water to monitor its projects and appoint a competent monitoring team is a sighn of a advanced management system employed by the organization. National water and sewerage cooperation ability to subcontract to competent suppliers enables the organization to be able to provide timely and High quality services efficiently, according to still (2015), argues that contracts are the life blood of the modern business. Without this vital legal glue, entering into arm’s length commercial deals would be fraught with peril yet for medium to large sized organizations contract management brings challenges of its own. This means that in order to rely on contracts, managers must ensure that their terms and conditions are largely defensible. According to the survey by the international association for contract and commercial management of 2008, there are fewer high value global contracts coming to the market and an increasing number of ‘second tier’ companies entering the market and seeking to secure smaller but potentially more complex contracts.
Easing communication with in the departments of National water and sewerage cooperation, this is through the use of office landline telephones and other information communication technology systems like use of company emails. The adoption of the use of company emails by all employees has nabled the organization to reduce costs and increase profitability. E-mail is a process by which letters, orders or other documents are sent by a computer along telecommunication lines to appear on the Visual Display Unit (VDU) at their destination. They emphasize that incase organization use this technique in the process of buying, sending and receiving of messages can take minutes instead of days.E-mail will be based on sending and receiving of electronic messages, he states that e-mail will be available in the internet for over 20 years.
Use of employee Electronic cards for opening the door for employees. Electronic cards are integrated circuit chips used to store employee specific information including Employee job designation, they have ability to provide intelligence and store significant amount of information of up to 20 pages of text. The following are the benefits of using smart cards; They offer convenience since they are of the same size like credit cards, They store reasonable amount of information and thus will be easier to be accessed by the organization for use at any time, They are economical and thus reduce on the handling fraud and They provide confidentiality and security of information. According to Enslow (2006), smart cards provide effective and efficient means of storage and compatibility, especially with EDI, which facilitates easy movement and exchange of information. The global use of smart cards will depend on the introduction of global payment standards that are currently being developed.
E-Market place ; Lysons (2006) asserts that, e-market is a web site that enables procurement officers to select the best suppliers in the market electronically. In this situation, a procurer is in control especially in open market places. This enables procurer to evaluate all potential suppliers for a particular product or service and make informed buying decisions regarding what and where to buy. This brings efficiency in procurement since the best-evaluated bidders will be given contracts to supply. According to Chaffey (2007), e-market is applicable where; the market is large enough, product specification and information are subject to rapid changes, suppliers have difficulties in comparing similar products from different vendors, the cost of locating, appraising and evaluating suppliers is high.
Faster information transfer. Information and communication technology equipment’s like internet, satellite and telephones enables a speedy transfer of information between the supplier and the buyer. Therefore, all the necessary information that the supplier needs to give to the buyer regarding how the goods in transit should be handled, stored and packed are given to the buyer prior to delivery so that special attention is taken by the buyer where necessary( Van Horne 1994)
Reduce inventory levels, information and communication technology helps the buying organization to order the needed items at the right time and once the need arises then an order will be placed. This helps the organization to do away with bulk stock levels hence solving the problem of inventory costs like obsolescence and dampness leading to losses this leads to efficiency and effectiveness in the operations.
According to Barberis et al., (2019) Public-private partnerships and networks have become joint policy instruments. Network governance requires clear expertise and roles. If local institutions use networks to dump social questions on their partners, democratic accountability will be limited and replaced by output control and financial accountability. Lack of coordination can stimulate particularistic interests, endangering the scope of risk for social groups that are less politically prioritized. In disadvantaged areas, actors taking part in networks may not enjoy the resources and expertise to develop community capacity to replace unrelated public action and to adapt to competitive management requirements. Weaker networks that need more support are likely to be more influenced by austerity measures, increasing their dependence on “grant coalitions” for public funding. Sharing goals and tools among various actors can be complicated. Unclear asymmetries of power and tasks can create holes and overlaps in the network, leaving social needs uncovered and powerless actors.
The involvement of the intended beneficiaries of government services into monitoring service delivery is a critical component in measuring the performance of government delivery of appropriate and quality services. Currently the emphasis of government’s monitoring is on internal government processes and the voice of the intended beneficiaries/stakeholders is largely absent. This presents a risk, as the picture is not complete. It is therefore necessary to support the systematic ways to bring the experiences of stakeholders into the monitoring of services. This will provide a measure of the gap between the perceived and the actual experiences of service delivery, for both user and provider.
Involving stake holders in the process of service delivery, To manage complex contracts with multiple stakeholders it is useful to establish committees with membership that is representative of stakeholders. Using committees can provide a structured approach for communicating with relevant parties. Ghebreyesus etal (2008) contends that incorporating stakeholders in the day to day operations of managing their own services delivery through effective contract management would go a long way to enable them receive goods and services that meet their requirements and maintain a sufficient customer satisfaction on a sustainable level.
National water and sewerage cooperation has created a system that ensure administrative Accountability is important for effective performance in the public sector because both elected and non-elected officials need to show the public that they are performing their responsibilities in the best possible way and using the resources provided them effectively and efficiently. This is one of the key elements of public administration and when accountability is effective there is an effective use of government resources
There is accountability and transparency at National water and sewerage cooperation, In order to achieve accountability there is need to have transparency in governance of the government sector as this will ensure that the citizens are served promptly is imperative to achieve good governance. Enhancing transparency across the departments of National water and sewerage cooperation departments, this will help in stamping out corruption across the institution. When corruption is high there is always poor service delivery and this therefore affects organization from achieving its goals and missions.
Transparency means that decisions taken and their enforcement are done in a manner that follows rules and regulations (Tijssen & Erika, 2018). There is team that is dedicated at ensuring that proper ethics are achieved at National water and sewerage Cooperation, since corruption can kill any organization. Corruption in developing countries; the estimate on record is that between 1970 and 2008, illicit financial flows were over $800 billion from Africa. The United Nations estimates that illegal outflows of capital from Africa totaled over $830 billion in the first 15 years of this century, much of it linked to movements of high-value commodities like gold, diamonds, and platinum straining the ability of the continent’s governments to provide services like healthcare, education, and infrastructure (Yeboah-Assiamah, et al., 2016).
Adoption of E-recruitment; NWSC uses online recruitment to recruit its staff in this situation Interested people sign up to hear about vacancies as and when they arise. This is an excellent, targeted way of getting out information to those who have already stated an interest, however the recruitment market changes very quickly and an email/message list can be out of date quickly. For recruitment, the website is the ideal place to make available all the documentation and information prospective candidates need. They can also be the place where applications are registered and forms are completed. However, they are only the information source, promotion to get people to that website is far more important.
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