Bureaucracy- It is evident and
an indisputable fact that a lot of work has been done by successive government
in Nigeria towards eradicating bottlenecks in the country’s public
administration. It is an against the back –
drop, that any described bureaucracy as “ Levia than” a monolithic and
virtually uncontrollable force eaten away at personal liberties and economic
resources.
For him, it is a fool: few set of individuals bound with red toe and
rule book. He accuses bureaucrats and bureaucracies of operating utranies
(beyond the scope of their authority).However, porters view, implies that bureaucracy is its own seed of discord, hence in all the complex organizations things are never done through the front door quickly, expect through the back door, but it is the opinion of the researcher that Peter is not completely correct in his assumption on findings that bureaucracy is not an uncontrollable and a leviathan”, taking cognizance of the fact that bureaucracy is a subject to influence of the political authority and therefore lacks the will power to the expression of the will of the state. In contrast to Peters view, P.J. Godwin stated thus: “They are there in all government systems, two primary functions of government; the expression of the will of state and the execution of that will. There are in all states separates organs each of which is busied mainly with the discharge of one of these functions. These functions are mainly politics and administration respectively.
These two contrary views not with-standing, it is still notable that bureaucracy still remains one of the life wire of any government. That is why. Apple by maintained that public administration is policy making and he concluded that it is “it is one of the number of basic political processes by which people achieve and control governance. Apple bye’s view is quite in agreement with the general view that bureaucracy and public administration should not be allowed to degenerate into state leviathan and uncontrolled force but rather it should be accountable to public opinion. It is our view that accountability in public service indicated responsiveness to public opinion.
Again, down in his “Inside Bureaucracy” described this in terms of the tendencies of individuals within the organization to shift from Zealot to conserve roles.
Aims, has a contrary view and submitted that “corrupt practices occur in reality all ministers, departments, agencies and every facts of human activity. The problem is more wide spread at the pass through. He mentioned and concluded that the Nigeria society needs urgent solutions to ensure its survival.
But due to differences in environmental orientations, this practice is not applicable in the Nigeria society. And therefore counts the error of inconsistency and is therefore guilty of illegitimate reductionism in his trend of analysis of West African bureaucracy.
In the countries social plat form, the impastation of British and American models of bureaucracy did not work out. The following cross sections of public opinion account for this.
In line with the researchers, ex – military head of state of Nigeria between 1976 and 1978, admitted that the violation of civil servants which in the parliamentary government persisted throughout.
The thirty – six period of military rule. In this light he remarked; during the military administration the civil servants have to a lay extent been and heard. A must however, be realized that it was what the time dictated, an air of anonymity which they will soon start to breathe should be seen as derogator”.
The effect of this is bureaucratic corruption, inefficiency and red – tapism Prof., Ladipo Adenolekun, shared the assessment of Nigerian bureaucracy between 1979 and 1983 when he rightly stated; “ while most civil servants tried as they could adhere to the norms, rules of a career service, there notable violations arising from Independence, Limited ability or on right lack of inegrity manifested in case of collusion in corrupt practices”. Ladipo, though very fair and critical in his analysis of public bureaucracy between 1979 and 1983, he lamented over some notable bureaucracy bottlenecks that bednailed the Nigerian’s public administration. He identified them as inefficiency, corruption, red – tapism, deptism, over concentration of powers and misgovernment
Emezie has similar views with Ademolekun, bengocs into details than him. However, he deviates a little and traced the bureaucratic bottlenecks as having links with colonialism. He sees it as in increase in power of bureaucracy and bureaucratic antinomy. This has a great effect on the public administration of the nation and the major carry over of colonial bureaucracy. He identified about four major fundamental problems which characterized colonial bureaucracy which are institutionalized in Nigerian’s public enthronement of powerful psychological overtone on bureaucrats who performed in it as well as on the total society at lay the training of employed clerks, general administrative and executive officers stressed the unlimited potential authority. Indeed what emerged as the character of the colonial bureaucracy was the authoriatarism prestige which governments received in the eye of the public. This psychological attitude made it possible to hold administrators in, are and esteem and created an endearing habit. Today, Nigerian’s bureaucracy inherited this colonial past together with its system procedures practices, norms and conventions. Commenting further on political and bureaucratic cooption Adeenolekun contended that, Evidence of political and administrative corruption under colonial rule has been documented by a few former political officers. These corrupt practices involved both “humble and mighty officials of authorities. However, given the stringent control mainted by the colonial officers over the native authorities. The incidents of corruption by some individuals were of limited proportions.
In this regard, Adenelokun Noted that “ from the time party governments were established in 1954 to the disappearance in 1960, corrupt practices assumed a huge proportions that were formally unknown.
CONCEPTS
Modern criticism of bureaucracy has tended to focus on
the idea that bureaucracies are bloated, inefficient and overly expensive. From
the organizational perspective, bureaucracies can create sclerosis in the
organization. People can become obsessed with following rules and procedures
instead of doing the job most effectively. In this way, the emphasis on rules
that comes along with a bureaucracy is very problematic.
ADVANTAGES/MERITS OF BUREAUCRACY
With lots of management, a bureaucratic structure has a
very strong boundary, commands and expectations are all very clear and well
communicated. Authority is not spread; instead this is centralized among
employees. Job descriptions are specialized and detailed. Overtime, bureaucracy
establishes several rules in order to maintain its structure.
Management is capable of monitoring outcomes that leads
itself towards standard services and products as well as quality control.
Exerting intense and self control, bureaucracies tend to
work like matches made up of different gears and cogs.
Every part functioning and serving entirely. This might
sound dystopian, seeing organizations work like machines but this quite an
advantage because this enables management to focus on coordinating effort and
success. This approach works best in conventional environment. Humming along
mechanically, order of bureaucratic organizations fit together with stability
enabling companies to move relentlessly its set strategic goals.
Employees function and work repetitively with increased
efficiency, proficiency and productivity.
Still on the advantages; bureaucracies have been a more
human side in that they are collection of individuals who bring talents, values
and idiosyncrasies to them. Indeed it has been observed that the essential
ingredients of the bureaucratic behaviour are the various personnel values
reflected in day to day operations.
Another advantage is that, society needs more social
vices and amenities, such as education, electricity etc. it is the Bureaucracy
that is charge with the responsibility of discharging all these functions for
the society.
Also, some of the laws passed by the legislators are so
technical that only the expert can handle properly. However bureaucracy has
grown more visible and important to more people that they once were. The
administrative machinery of government has become so large and complex that
modifying its procedure and output truly does require herculean efforts and
great perseverance.
SOME DISADVANTAGES OF BUREAUCRACY
When jobs are specialized, there is the tendency that it
would be repetitive. This can lead to boredom in some employees and may also
lead to dissatisfaction. Employees are not judge on how they fulfill their main
functions, employees disempowerment rooted from centralized structure. With
bureaucratic structure holding more authority, employees become passive,
helpless and indifferent to the goals of the company.
This type of structure stops a company from quickly
manoeuvring, the charges in certain procedures must pass through chains of
evaluations and commands before getting approval, in stable settings, this
rigidity is not really an issue but in volatile scenarios, the inability to
change quickly can pose real problems. Lumbering companies cannot move abrupt
competitive threats.
A particular company that brings up rear in market faces
adjustments is impossible to become a leader in the industry. Disempowered
employees lack the freedom to innovate for higher or better positions within
the company especially when abrupt market shift happen between lack of
manoeuvrability difficulty in innovating companies are employing bureaucratic
structures has the risk of becoming irrelevant in their own niche or industry.
Victor Thompson criticizes bureaucracy on the lack of
innovations. For instance, the contents that bureaucracy is not supposed to e
innovative, but are only supposed to carryout externally defined tasks in a
reliable, predictable fashion. More than
this, bureaucratization is said to undermine organizational effectiveness for a
reason that has never been expressed more succinctly than by Fred Riggs. In his
words is ‘’the more elaborate the structure, the more likely it is fall into
disarray and stop working just as a precision watch more likely to stop working
than a sun dial’’.
Therefore, increasing bureaucratic organization becomes
progressively more susceptible to performance lapses as its structural
arrangement becomes more elaborate.
Robert Merton in his book, leadership in bureaucracy
points to the fact that the emphasis on rules and their impersonal application
although designed as a means of ending or to end very frequently translates
themselves into ends in which cases it’s only the reverse that follows. More
often than not, the rules defeat the purpose which they were meant to serve.
Also, bureaucracy and bureaucratic culture are highly complex and contain a
number of subtleties which create a substantial gap between form and reality, for
instance, despites considerable efforts at the establishment, a high degree of
administration professionalism has remained elusive. Only at the uppermost
level of the organization is there a strong tendency towards career services,
professional prestige which often go hand in hand with professionalism.