Institutional Collaboration as Essential Ingredient for Good Governance, Efficient and Effective Service Delivery in a Democracy: A Critical Discourse1

This paper deals with the issue of institutional collaboration as an ingredient for good governance, efficient and effective service delivery to the citizenry in a democracy as well as the role of the tripodic super- bureaucracies and their Practitioners in the processes involved. It takes off with a discussion of the relevant concepts that give both theoretical and practical expressions to the Offices of the SSG; HOS and; CSC vis-à-vis their coordinate relational partnerships. In the process, the deep-seated history; functions as well as the problems and challenges of these offices were concretely highlighted. While the benefits of collaboration among them were identified and critically examined, the need for the super-bureaucracies and bureaucrats in the state to create conducive atmospheres for the continuous sustenance of collaboration was stressed as the only avenue for the civil service to regain its lost glory and attain relevance in today’s global village in line with the ethos of public administration of the 21st century.