The Challenges Facing Local Government Communication Officers: The Case of Dar es Salaam City, Tanzania

Abstract

Government exists to deliver quality and equitable services amidst increasing public expectations and growing fiscal pressures. One of the key aspects for the delivery of services is effective communication handled by communication staffs. The execution of government communication officer’s role is widely experiencing a myriad of challenges of different patterns from one country to another.   This paper aimed to identify the challenges faced by communication staff at local councils in Dar es Salaam, which comprises five municipal councils. The study adopted a qualitative approach method and used purposive sampling to select nine (9) communication officers and five (5) Executive Directors) making a sample size of 14 respondents were attended in-depth interviews, observation and documentary review as data collection technique. The gathered data was thematically analysed. The study has revealed that the major challenges facing communication staffs in Dar es Salaam city were organisational structure and misunderstanding of the roles and responsibilities of communication officers leading to other challenges such as budget constraints, poor working environment, insufficient cooperation from other departments and lack of common statutory document guiding their communication functions. The study concludes that, communication activities in five municipal councils of Dar es Salaam were largely not a management function as many of communication officers were not involved in the management meeting where the major decisions about councils were done. The study recommends communication activities to be a management function that will allow communication staffs to be part of committee management meetings.