ASIAN JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS MANAGEMENT 2022, VOL. 1, NO. 3, 209 – 217 https://doi.org/10.53402/ajebm.v1i3.202 OPEN ACCESS CONTACT Erick Ngwega ngwega@hotmail.co.uk © 2022 The Author(s). Published with license by Lighthouse Publishing. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/), which allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work’s authorship and initial publication in this journal. Heads of departments' managerial skills and performance of local government departments: Evidence from seventeen selected local government authorities in Tanzania Erick Ngwega* Institute of Rural Development Planning (IRDP) ABSTRACT KEYWORDS Local Government Authorities (LGAs) all over the world have experienced poor performance for many years. However, it has been confirmed that managerial skills are the bases for proper performance of Departments in the Local Government Authorities. What have been not clear are the influence of managerial skills on the performance of Local Government Departments in Tanzania. This study examined the influence of managerial skills on performance of selected Local Government Departments in Tanzania. The study used cross-sectional research design and purposive sampling techniques in selecting study areas and respondents. Data were collected through questionnaire (main instrument) from 290 Heads of Departments in selected Local Government Authorities in Tanzania. Descriptive statistics, factor analysis and Structural Equation Modelling was applied during data analysis. The study was guided by Management Competency Theory. The study found that managerial skills in terms of Administrative and technical skills had significant effect on the performance of selected Local Government departments in Tanzania. This study has also implications for practitioners (Heads of Departments). On the one hand, like previous research, study findings show that in order to achieve proper performance, LGAs should provide capacity building to their personnel (HoDs) in areas of financial management and technical skills. In addition, managerial skills significantly influence revenue target and service delivery to the community. Thus, in order to improve performance of LGAs, the study concludes by recommending that for someone to be appointed as a Head of Department of LGAs in Tanzania, they must have managerial and technical skills related to financial matters for proper implementation of departmental operations and programmes and this should be part and parcel of the LGAs strategy and policy. The study also recommends that, the Local Authorities Accounts Committee (LAAC) to abide by the existing legal frameworks to control financial irregularities in the Departments of LGA and promote service delivery to the community. This will also reduce audit queries and control leakage of public funds in the LGAs. Administrative skills; Technical skills; Human skills; Financial and Nonfinancial performance Received: 2 October 2022 Accepted: 12 November 2022 Published: 20 November 2022 Introduction The state of local government administration in general and of public sector performance in particular in all parts of the world plays an increasingly important role in economic development and delivery of fundamental basic public services (Franzke, 2016; UN-Habitat, 2018). This has been a subject of concern for politicians, policy makers, academicians and public management practitioners for many decades (Krishnamohan, 2016). Studies by Geißler, Hammerschmid, and Raffer (2019) show that, performance of local government authorities (LGAs) in Austria, Denmark, UK and Finland has been seen as an important tool in revenue collection and providing most important social services such as healthcare and education closer to people. However, despite its economic and social benefits to the society, it has been documented that, across the world, when developed and developing countries are compared both parties suffer from poor performance of LGAs (Franzke, 2018; Maj-Waśniowska & Jedynak, 2020). This poor performance is associated with fiscal factors, ageing population (Squire & Beazley, 2016; Welham, Hart, Mustapha, & Hadley, 2017), unsuitable skills (Agbonlahor, 2016), financial crises, Brexit (Barbera, Jones, Korac, Saliterer, & Stecollini, 2018) and inadequate internal control measures (Masanja, 2018). As a result, many developed countries such as the United Kingdom and USA are struggling to restore, stabilize and sustain their economic growth which was severely affected by the economic recession of 2008-2010 (Lodge & Hood, 2012). According to Barbera et al. (2017), such struggle can probably work if they include development of new tools and skills for operations and decision making. Many sub-Saharan countries including Tanzania consider performance of Local Government authorities as the heart of the government for building more accountability in terms of revenue collection target and strengthening