Effects of Public Sector Entities Reform on Transparency and Accountability in Nigeria between Year 2015- 2020

Abstract

This paper examined the effects of public sector reforms in entities and how the reforms promote accountability and transparency. The purpose is to examine public sector reforms between 2015 - 2020 that support transparency and accountability. We further examine to what extent the objectives have been attained and factors or challenges militating against efficient public sector reforms in Nigeria. We focus on a three specific proxies and their dimension of transparency and Accountability-Ease of doing business, Open Budget Initiative and Corruption Index using World Bank's Indicators and Transparency International Rankings. We carry out a thematic survey and find that in the Nigeria context, several public sector reform initiatives have been implemented over the years covering all sectors and different levels. The reform measures vary depending on the priority of the political leadership, however, it all anchored on the principles of economy, efficiency and effectiveness, transparency, social growth, innovation, and good governance. In the end we discovered that some of the reforms initiatives yielded moderate result why other have little or no impact on transparency and accountability. We concluded that, though, Nigeria has developed general guidelines and evolve initiatives to improve the ease of doing business and its budgeting processes, corruption is a widespread problem and is responsible for poor socioeconomic growth and development. We recommend that government take a more direct and frontal route, like imposition of death penalty in the fight against corruption. This will create an environment in which graft and fraud are less likely to proliferate. Additionally, it will ensure government operate seamlessly to the benefit of the general public, the emergence of strong public institutions and finally, a nation where the rule of law actually rules.