AN EMPIRICAL RESEARCH OF THE IMPACT OF BUREAUCRACY ON NIGERIA PUBLIC ENTERPRISE

CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY:

The purpose of a bureaucracy is to successfully implement the actions of an organization of any size (but often associated with large entities such as government, corporations, and non-governmental organizations), in achieving its purpose and mission, the bureaucracy is tasked to determine how it can achieve its purpose and mission with the greatest possible efficiency and at the least cost of any resources. The principle of social organization which characterize the twentieth-century industrial societies is “rational coordination” otherwise known as ‘Bureaucracy’. Under this form of organization, people are brought together in formal and complex settings run by professionals and experts. The professionals are called ‘Bureaucrats’ while the organizations they run are known as ‘Bureaucracies’. The nineteenth century produced a number of brilliantly descriptive and literary accounts of modern bureaucracies. Many writers call attention to the increasing bureaucratization of human activity but Max Weber a German Sociologist, historian and economist, is credited with having made the most thorough analysis of bureaucracy (Mullins, 1999). The main contention in the writings of these scholars is that more and more spheres of life are being dominated by large organizations and increasing numbers of people are becoming employees of complex organizations. As a matter of fact, quite a few aspects of modern society can be studied without reference to bureaucracy. Most obviously in the business world and in modern establishments, the coordination of specialists, in accordance with impersonal rules is highly developed and adopted. The same trend has also been observed to be the pattern in every other areas of the society. Wilmot (1985) and Applebaum and Chamblis (1995) argued that bureaucracy starts from birth (health bureaucracy) to family upbringing (social welfare), to school (educational) to work (civil service, military, commercial, industrial) to worship and death (religion): man is increasingly dominated by bureaucracy. Every sphere of modern life has thus become very bureaucratic as people are born into bureaucracies; grow in it, live with it, and even die in it. It is bureaucracy all the way and all the time. Right from the unset of this world, man has co-operatively organized as a group to work towards a directed goal in a directive manner indeed the prevalence of complex bureaucracies is believed to be the structural frame work in our recent organizations. Against this bed the emergencies of these bureaucracy Organization is so unprecedented and epitomizing of the contemporary era that it is often believed that we are living in the organizational society where people are manned by organization (PROCTITIS 1962) No less important to mention is the fact these complex organizations are established not only to find solution to given human problems but to do efficiently it is not surprising therefore that in the new turn era, the central concern of several classical social analysis was the issue of how man is going to organize human society in general and more specifically his productive activities in the most efficient way to achieve maximum benefits. Adam Smith (1723-1790) advocated that Economic on industrial matters should be left in the hands of economics or industrial elites and agents i.e. (those waste in economic affairs) He was concerned with the problem of organizational productivity. Above all, for Max Webber (1864-1920) the essence of bureaucratic organization is efficiency. In other words, the peculiar characteristics of bureaucracy enables men to effectively and efficiently deal with and transform the socio-physical environment. It is at this basic that bureaucratic organizations are guided and pirated in man’s bid to perfect and actualize himself through socio-economic development that any impediment to their efficient operations should be incised seriously. Indeed, the fact that Nigerians fought a civil war six years after independence, followed immediately by another six years of unprecedented oil boom in which extreme materialism took over control of Nigeria’s mind and total soul, led to the enthronement of indiscipline, corruption and a lot contempt for order honours and excellence within the whole society including the bureaucrat public. 1.2 STATEMENT OF PROBLEMS Bureaucratic efficiency has now posed serious concern for all. It distorts the smooth operation of system of PHCN Business unit Onitsha and adversely affects the efficient delivery of public goods and services. The main problem of this research therefore revolves the following question. What is Bureaucracy? Is the country’s socio-political climate conducive for revise, sound and efficient public bureaucracy? Has the government of Nigeria made any serious efforts towards facing and eradication of Bureaucratic inefficiency in her public administration? To what extent does the reform exercise yielded positive result? Could it be possible for Nigerian’s public administration or public enterprise to service without bureaucratic inefficiency?

1.3 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

This research is aimed at finding out the extent to which bureaucratic efficiency have undermined the smooth effective and efficient operation of Nigeria Public Administration. To identify, examine and analyzing these valuables vis-a-vis their remote causes in the country’s public services administration. It is equally the purpose of this research work to make a well articulated recommendation that will go a long way in helping to ensure sanity in our public service with a view to achieving efficiency and increase productivity. At this research the Eric bureaucratic inefficiency have inflicted in public enterprise basis and the quest to establish a solid, dependable, sound and efficient public administration/bureaucracy that