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 CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
1.1.
Background
Since the coming to power of the EPRDF led government, there have been several

reforms, economic or otherwise. One of such reforms is decentralization of power,

which has also shaped the nature of governance and hierarchical distribution of power

among the different levels of the government in general. More importantly, the delivery

of services has been fully decentralized, with lower levels of administration like

Kebeles assuming more powers in administration and delivery of public services.

Currently local government administration is organized in such a way that all public

services are efficiently handled at Kebele level, the lowest administrative organ.

Accordingly, Kebeles are empowered to handle almost all services like land

administration, issuance of ID cards, marriage certificates and birth certificates,

policing services, collection of land rents/taxes, land ownership licensing and transfer

of properties, etc.

As a result, society has benefited from such an arrangement as most services are

brought closer to the community, thereby avoiding lengthy bureaucratic procedures

delays that have been the order of the days during the old system of the past. Despite

the potential benefits of such a decentralized approach of service delivery, however,

there are serious problems prevailing. One of these problems is related the poor filing

system, which is seriously affecting the amount and quality of service delivery to the

society.

Due to poorly organized filing and recording/archiving system, the issuance of ID

cards have become problematic, i.e., personal files are lost or misplaced and hence

cannot be easily located if applicants want to get replacements for lost IDs. Moreover,
individuals can illegally obtain IDs due to lack of adequate information on past history

and family/household particulars and population dynamics (in/out migration). The

same is true for issuance of birth certificates. There is also lack of organized and up-

to-date data
1
on the number of kebele-owned houses rented to local
residents and businesses, which
has led to a huge loss of revenues.

Similar problems prevail in the area of land administration due to problems of data

organization and storage. There is lack of well organized data on the available land by

amount/land size, land-use patterns, land ownership status and geographical

distribution etc. As a result, some obtain more land illegally while others don’t leading

to illegal land market and unlawful benefits. In the process also, investors and legal

personalities are discouraged ultimately affecting the long-term growth opportunity of

the town.

Much of the problems mentioned above could easily be avoided through maintaining a

good filing system and data management practices. There is, therefore, urgency in

designing a better filing system, improved data storing and retrieval mechanism to

solve these and other related problems.

1.2. Statement of the problem

Following the implementation decentralization in recent years, the delivery of the most

common public services has been channeled to the lower administrative levels of

government organization. Unlike in the past, services like issuance of marriage/birth

certificates, land rent/taxes, police services, issuance of ID cards and birth certificates

etc, are now decentralized to lower administrative levels, such as Kebeles, which are

more numerous and closer to the society that needs these services.

According to the recent structuring, Jimma town is organized into 13 Kebele

administrations, each entrusted with the responsibility of delivering the services

mentioned above, in line with the basic principle of decentralization. This has brought

a number of benefits to the community. In particular, it has proved efficient under

normal circumstances as it has shortened processes and lengthy bureaucratic

procedures of a centralized system of service delivery.

2

Despite its attractiveness and potential for improvement, however, decentralization

is not without problems. Bringing all such services mentioned above from few

centralized and well-staffed or well-organized administrative centers down to the

numerous and relatively less-staffed kebele centers had to come about at a real cost.

Apart from the resulting financial implication due to the personnel and running

overheads of the Kebele offices, establishing an up-to-date filing, documentation and

data management system has been expensive and extremely difficult for most part.

This has led to serious problems and negative implications.

One of the problems in this regard has been the problem related to land management.

The fact that the land administration is manual has led to several problems as far as

the towns overall investment and economic activities is concerned in general and the

towns land management in particular. Due to lack of well organized database of the

land use pattern in the kebeles, the amount of available land (used land by type of

land-use and free land for investment as well as residence) is often unknown. For

instance, there are cases where a particular residential plot is allocated for two or

more individuals leading disputes and at times loss of lives.

On the other hand, there are cases where an individual is allotted more than one plot

of land for constructing house. In some cases, individuals illegally obtain up to 6 plots

of lands, while others are obliged to buy from these illegal land owners as they

difficulty getting land through legal means. The main reason is inability on the part of

kebele officials to cross-check as to whether an individual has been offered land in the

past or not. The filing system is not automated and doesn’t allow for such controls,

consequently creating injustice to a major part of the local community.

A closely related issue is the problem of tax/rent collection from kebele-owned houses,

private-houses and land rent/lease. Kebeles do not have a complete data on the

taxable sources and rented houses. The type and number of houses rented, the
amount taxes/rents paid and still outstanding is hardly known and documented. As a

result, a lot of revenue goes uncollected due to lack of accurate data as mentioned.

Similarly,
3

Der Project Final_body

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Sections

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• 1.1. Background
• 1.2.Statement of the problem
• 1.3.2. Specific objectives
• 1.4.Significance of the project
• 1.5.Scope and limitations of the project
• 1.6.2. Data collection method
• 1.6.3. System analysis design
• 1.6.4. Tools to use
• 2.1.1. Activities provided by the existing system

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