Citizen experience is a governance issue, not customer service – Julius Debrah

Chief of Staff Julius Debrah has called for citizen experience to be treated as a core governance priority, arguing that quality public service is essential to rebuilding trust in government.

Public institutions must move beyond viewing service delivery as a customer care function and instead place citizen experience at the centre of governance and national development, Chief of Staff Julius Debrah has said.

Speaking at the launch of the book Citizen Experience: A Reset for Superior Public and Civil Service Delivery in Accra on Wednesday, Mr. Debrah argued that the quality of interactions between citizens and public institutions has a direct impact on confidence in government and democratic governance.

According to him, unlike customers who can choose between competing service providers, citizens often have no alternative when accessing essential government services, placing a greater responsibility on the state to deliver efficiently and fairly.

“One of the central arguments of the book is that citizen experience is the new social contract. In a democracy, legitimacy is not secured only at the ballot box. It is renewed, or weakened, in the ordinary encounters between citizens and the state,” he said.

Mr. Debrah explained that trust in public institutions is built through consistent, respectful and transparent service delivery.

“When a citizen is treated with fairness, clarity, speed and dignity, trust grows. When a citizen is ignored, confused, delayed or humiliated, trust weakens. And when this happens repeatedly, across institutions and across years, people do not only lose confidence in an office. They begin to lose confidence in the promise of government itself,” he stated.

He noted that the distinction between customer experience and citizen experience is fundamental because public institutions carry obligations that extend beyond ordinary commercial relationships.

“A customer can walk away. A citizen often cannot. You may choose another shop, another bank, another network provider. But when you need a passport, a birth certificate, a police report, a permit, a licence or a public health service, you are dealing with the state. The state therefore carries a higher moral responsibility,” he said.

Mr. Debrah stressed that improving citizen experience should form part of national governance discussions alongside key policy areas such as economic management and national security.

“This is why we argue that citizen experience is not a customer service matter. It is a governance issue. It belongs at the same table as fiscal policy, security policy and development planning. It must be measured. It must be led. It must be budgeted for. It must be reviewed. It must be demanded from the top and practised at the front desk,” he emphasized.

He said the book introduces what the authors describe as the “Citizen Experience Failure Cycle,” explaining that poor public service is often the result of weak institutional systems rather than individual failures alone.

“If we only blame people, we miss the system. But if we understand the system, we can redesign it,” Mr. Debrah noted.

He called on leaders across the public service to prioritize reforms that improve institutional performance and ensure that citizens receive efficient, transparent and dignified services.

According to the Chief of Staff, building a responsive state requires leadership that values accountability, measures performance and continuously improves service delivery to meet the expectations of the Ghanaian people.