The operations, efficiency and effectiveness of public organizations are often confined and defined in the formal bureaucratic structures of government as though everything else outside it is of minor consideration and importance. It is a helpful exercise to occasionally assess and measure the impact of the relational connected-ness between formal and informal structures in a government setting. However this undertaking is often a very complicated because even in very highly bureaucratic societies, such as ours, the machinery of government can be difficult to define. It is even more so in a developmental state whose mandate in the development process is highly dependent on the efficacy and functional zeal of the public service structures. A critical feature of this assessment is the often downplayed relationship between the formal and informal structures and the extent to which that relationship adds value to the processes of delivering services to the citizenry.
At the core of the structural complexity is the fact that bureaucratic institutions of government can be very elusive and boundaries easily blur when we seek to establish these. At the top, bottom and sides of the public organizations is the shading off into what are often the nongovernmental institutions that may be of varied functional responsibilities and therefore varying in the degree of the value of their functional contribution into the larger government mandate. The contributions of these institutions are further blurred by the crisscrossing nature of the network of both formal and informal relations that are an operational routine for progress. At the very least this relational crisscrossing is also a result of various permutations of the shifts in the arrangement of public organizations as well as any shifting of alliances and networks. We sometimes underplay this process and the impact of it on any compromises that are and may be essential in the continued relevance of the formal and informal relations within the bureaucracy and across its informal structures.
It is a critical process because it involves a combination of ideological and very often pragmatic considerations anchored on both rationality and emotive drive and almost inevitably guided by the old and new legal and extralegal frameworks. This network of relations very clearly defines the formal façade which can easily be contextualized through legal and procedural provisions. In all bureaucratic settings, you only need to have a look at constitutions, laws, ethical codes and organizational structures to understand the formal regulated functional and expected relational mandates. It is not so clear when you measure the impact of informal agreements, loopholes, chance meetings, temporary groupings and unstructured sessions, although some of the critical decisions within the bureaucracy may actually result from these later group. It is often very visible under political settings where good governance truly opens up frontiers for effective engagement amongst and between formal and informal structures.
I have often wondered as to how much value we, as a nation attach to the validity and importance of striving to create space for meaningful engagement as a necessary process for public service administrative efficiency. Current debates on the assumed or perceived decline in the consultative process between formal and informal structures of government are indicative, at least to some, of how much less attention we seem to attach to the value of interactive and effective relational networking that adds value to service delivery. It is accepted that in any bureaucratic setting it is easier and often fashionable to identify with the more easily identifiable and usually fairly stable central core of bureaucracy’s mandate, because the legal framework would normally legislate its structure and relational expectations. However we need not forget that much as the work of government hinges around the performance of public institutions, they are only part of the larger machinery and are not exclusive to government because the very same public officials are also invariably members of the many nongovernmental organizations within the country. The practical value of this scenario is that these officials can and do sometimes subordinate their loyalty to government to these social institutions and this is a critical aspect of the content and nature of how formal structures of the bureaucracy relate to those informal structures that may appear to be a little afar from government’s day to day routine work.
Why is this important to appreciate? Naturally, beyond the core it is often close to impossible to identify the limits of constitutional provisions guiding public service operations and when such is the case, the machinery of government, especially the formal structures, easily becomes the government unto itself. This then devalues the possibility of creating space for a meaningful merger between the formal structures of government and the informal structures that are functionally not so far away from the larger mandate of government. It is a good thing to ensure that through pressure group representations, consultative committees, delegated responsibilities, mixed enterprises or public corporations, trade unions, universities and the collective knowledge base of professional bodies, space is created for a more visible, effective and functional engagement towards meaningful good governance.
In the absence of dialogue that is necessary for the initiation, production and development of well oiled public policies, we would risk the decline and deterioration of good governance practices that we seem to so fondly speak off in many fora across the country. That talk must be based on an undertaking of reconciling the values of the formal and informal structures of government. If my understanding of what has so far been preached as the gospel for good governance is anywhere closer to reality, then we are greatly challenged to redefine our commitment to creating space for meaningful and functional engagement amongst and between these two critical sets of structures. Our developmental path would have more meaning and value to the citizenry if we afford these processes to network and find creativity in their relational actualizations. We can hide behind political correctness for only so long, very soon we will have to come out of our shells and spell out our intentions and practical engagements that define our character as a nation and that can, in part, be found in the nature of the relationship between formal and informal structures of the bureaucratic machinery. It must be well oiled to easily and smoothly operate.
*Molaodi teaches Public Administration at the University of Botswana
