Analysis of the gaps in fiscal and administrative decentralised service delivery in urban areas of Wakiso district; Case study: Nansana Municipality

Abstract

All urban local governments in Uganda are subjected to the same general legal framework of the Local Government Act CAP243 of 1997 (as amended) and also operate under the same national decentralization policy which was introduced in 1993. However, this research was derived from the fact that despite the presence of all these frameworks and Local Government structures in place, urban service delivery has failed to yield tangible results worth realizing urban sustainable development. The main objective of this research therefore, was to critically analyse the gaps in the existing fiscal and administrative decentralization which are viewed as part of the problem in realizing effective and efficient service delivery in urban areas by using Nansana Municipality found in the Central District of Wakiso as a case study. The specific objective were to examine the suitability of the available fiscal and administrative decentralisation structures, to analyse the nature of support provided by the central government towards urban councils, to establish the challenges facing fiscal and administrative decentralisation and therefore determine the best scientific and practical solutions of improving the fiscal and administrative decentralized delivery of services. The research was preferred to be undertaken by using a case study design in order to attain a detailed analysis by focusing on a particular problem of the specific urban area. The population of key respondents was scientifically identified from various key stakeholders in the area of study and the procedure was a combination of both random and purposive sampling techniques. The population size was a critical representative of the entire population characteristics who were ably probed to respond to both structured interviews and questionnaires. The findings of this study therefore are adduced to the fact that there are critical gaps which need to be addressed in order to realize the effective and efficient delivery of services in urban decentralised areas but the further critical analysis of the study between the existing literature and the new findings of this study drive to the need to combine both an improvement in the existing decentralisation policy and also apply the European principle of subsidiarity. It is therefore recommended that there is need for further analyses and interpretation of both the findings in this specific study with the existing literature specifically focusing on the principle of subsidiarity which are of paramount importance if we are to realize urban sustainable development in Uganda.