Strengthening intra municipal decentralisation through physical accessibility of services and openness in service delivery: The case of Morogoro municipal council

Abstract

Decentralization is a term which has gained popularity in development literature and has been a
fundamental mode of administration which empowers grass root community to bring about
development by themselves. In Tanzania, intra municipal decentralization is a new concept. It emerged
in Western Europe in six Scandinavian countries as a result of amalgamation reforms. The study
focused on localization with two main indicators; physical accessibility of office and openness in
service delivery, and the question was: What is the effectiveness of physical accessibility of office and
openness at neighbourhood and how can it be improved in Morogoro Municipality? Methodology used
was qualitative approach of which judgmental sampling was used to select government officials for
interview and simple random sampling was used to select neighborhoods to be studied. Researcher
also used snow boll sampling to get citizens for focus group discussion because he was not familiar
with research environment. In-depth interview was conducted with 15 municipal and neighborhood
officials and four focus group discussions. An observation method was also used to cross check if
respondents reported what they were doing. The study revealed that intra municipal decentralization is
not effective because offices are not well accessible; staff use only one room and do not have reception
areas. Schedule for meeting citizens are arranged by staff themselves and are often not accountable.
The meeting of citizens with staff is limited because of ineffective layout of office and most people are
not aware of open plan policy. Based on this, the researcher concluded that physical accessibility of
office and openness is ineffective and recommended that financial resources be distributed to
neighborhood based on population, size of the neighborhood and services they are providing and
introducing intra municipal regulations. Priorities in fund allocation should also be reviewed to include
office infrastructure and community participation should be sensitized.