CRISIS MANAGEMENT IN PUBLIC SECTOR (A CASE STUDY OF ENUGU NORTH LOCAL GOVERNMENT, ENUGU)
ABSTRACT
Since independence (196) till date, the Nigeria society has been undergoing transition with unavailable and unusual step by transformation process that effects all sectors of Nigeria society. The public sector organization been deliberately and hurriedly reformed to avoid the pit falls of the past. Recently, erratic decision are been made, new programmes are established and the old ones are re-established with new strategies in an effect to receive a new social order. In achieving this social order, a number of reforms are introduced into the public sector organizations and these (reforms) tend to be prone to one form of organizational crisis to another, regard to Nigeria public sector. These crises arise out of uncertainties or inadequacy of organizational resources. These could be as a result of power disorientation of employees in an organization and the employee rejection of management and authority’s reform. Any such crisis is capable of disturbing the realization of the organization objectives. An important step is to ensure success in the realization of public sector organization and to understand the dynamics of crisis in public sector are always involved in the crisis management. In conclusion, we can see that there are no effective tools for crisis management in Nigeria public sector. For this singular reason, the Enugu North Local Government (ENLG) was chosen to give a clear picture of public sector organization whose administration have not been able to act as autonomous part of the central government in Nigeria. In this study, were have been able to identify few of the numerous crisis that could hit the ENLG and ranked them in the order to profitability in developing a crisis management more for use by organizations in the public sector of the Nigeria economy. The researcher used historical research, survey and descriptive static in computing the data for this study.
CHAPTER ONE
1.1 INTRODUCTION
The Nigerian society is undergoing a rapid transition in addition to the inevitable and unusually gradual transformation processes that affect all social system. The institutions reformed to avoid the pitfalls of the Nigerian society are being deliberately and hurriedly strategic adopted all in an effort to achieve a social order. One of the on-going strategies to do this is the reform introduced into the public sector by the office of the Chief of General Staff (CGs) making the local government an effective third tiers government. Usually, such reform tend to point one form of organizational crisis or another crisis were refers to an usual situation the outcome of which is uncertain or capable of generating conflicts. With regards to the Nigeria public sector, it arises out of the inherent disposition of the system to distort the political and administrative process by its decision or operations. It also arises from situational uncertainties and inadequacies of an organization.
There could be power tussle, inadequate funds or time to execute cell envisaged project, physiological disorientation of the populace/employee and its rejection of the reform. There could be also either a lack of understanding of the full implication of established programmes or a deliberate clinging of politics established primarily to protect institutionalized class relations. Any such crisis is capable of distorting the achievement of the desired objective of the sector. Part of the process of ensuring public sector organizations to understand the dynamics of such crisis and apply appropriate remedies, provided that the change motivators are genuine and determined.
It is a known fact that the understanding of the dynamics of crisis is lacking in the equally true that the chief executive and administration in the management of crisis rather than in crisis management. From the foregoing, it is seen that there is no effective tool for crisis management in Nigerian public sector because of its large sizes. It is important that an organization within this sector is used as a reference point in order to limit the wideness of this study. The Enugu North Local Government (ENLG) has been chosen for proper representation of the public sector organization in the economy. In this thesis, we intend to identify the crisis situation that could hit ENLG and through the research, rank them in the order of their probability of occurring to develop a crises management tool for organization with the public sector of the Nigeria economy.
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
The local government has been characterized by instability and discontinuity emanating from one crisis situation to another. These crisis are always prompted by the activities of federal government and other environmental factors which usually lead to complete dissolution and or take over or functions of the management group by government appointed administrations. In order words, local government of this country has always been subjected to whims and caprices of the federal government. They were not all to make their own decisions as to contributing to the Nigerian economy or otherwise, they give enough financial assistance (authority) to be accountable to the device inherent in such to government.
The various government reforms are aimed at stabilizing and rationalizing local government organizations and corporations, it is quite unfortunate that however that the chosen implementation strategies been to have resulted in unanticipated policy outcomes. As a matter of facts, it is clear that to all that the aim of establishing the local government in Nigerian is to be an effective third tier of the government. This has not been realized. It is believed that this is mainly due to thee inability of the local government to effectively manage the form of crisis that afflicted it since its inception. It is against this background that crisis management in local government is being investigated. Every crisis has four main stages and allowing each crisis to pass through the four stages has been the bare of effective local government in Nigeria. The four stages of crisis include:
- Pronominal stage (early warning stage)
- Acute stage
- Chronic stage
- Resolution stage
Crisis management aimed at avoiding the acute and chronic stages of crisis. A crisis is used to be effectively managed if it moves from pronominal to resolution stages. We are aware that this has not been known to have gone through the four stags with inevitable consequences. If we take a look at the second republic and early part of the aborted republic (1988-1989) which were;
- Financial crisis
- Power crisis
- Manpower crisis
- Political crisis.
The above crisis were unfortunately allowed to go through the four stages and this had their unpleasant effect on the local government in Nigeria. For example, Enugu North Local Government administration was engulfed by crisis during the year 1989, this crisis went through the full cycle which cumulated in the intervention of both the state and federal government leading to the suspension of its popularly elected chairman. Another example can be cited from the demonstration carried out by members of the National Union of Local Government employee (NULGE) Enugu North Local Government Branch on March 9th 1999 protesting for the non-payment of salaries for six months. Furthermore, the strike action carried out by the National Union of Teachers (NUT) calling for the collection of their annual subventions directly from the federal government and not from the local government because they believe that this cannot be effectively carried out by them. It can be seen that after about two decades of it establishment the local government cannot manage available resources and avoid conflict or crisis from happening.
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