I am sure of its meaning, it is the institution which represents the central government of a country, on county level. It is also called Prefecture. In Italy, a prefect (prefetto) is the State's representative in a province (provincia). His agency is called the prefettura.
The Prefecture is created to supervise and in case change the decisions of the Local and Regional authorities, like local and county councils,if it thinks that ithose are ruuning against the laws, central governments policies or the interests of the country,for instance this is its role in Romania. The power of the prefecture and of its head ,the prefect, varies according to the degree of democracy and decentralisation of a country and also depending on its constitutional strcuture--it a nation state or a federal state and so on. The term comes from Latin praefectus meaning at the very beginning the military ruler of the province,appointed by Rome.
see also wikipedia