The Impact of Political Leadership on the Performance of Local Government Authorities in Tanzania

Abstract

This study sought to establish the impact of political leadership on the performance of the Local Government Authorities in Nzega District of Tanzania. The specific objectives of this study were: to establish the extent to which political leaders are effective in performing their supervisory, decision making and information roles, to identify the level of performance of local government authorities and to establish the impact of the role of political leaders on the performance. A descriptive-correlation research design along with quantitative research approach were adopted with a sample of 152 stakeholders (village chairpersons, councilors, ward executive officers, the district human resource officer and the district executive director). The questionnaires were used to collect data and obtained 100% response rate from all respondents and were analyzed using descriptive statistics and Spearman‟s correlation analysis. The findings showed that political leadership was proved to be effective at Nzega District Council. Also, the performance of the organization was satisfactory particularly on the infrastructure and services delivery which meet the community needs and concerns. Again, political leadership was found to determine the performance of the Local Government authorities positively and significantly. In view of these findings, the study recommends that the management of organization should make sure that political leaders are given opportunities to attend leadership workshops, seminars and short courses in order to help them be more effective in their role of supporting the performance of the organization in service delivery