Abstract
The study examined the practice of stewardship accounting by Government Ministries in Cameroon. It investigated how inclusive budget planning, timely budget execution, stringent budget control, and resolute scrutiny of government financial statements, affect the government stewardship accounting practice. To archive this, primary data collected from members of parliament were analysed, and regressed using the Ordinary Least Squares technique. The empirical results therefrom were of positive and statistical significance. They revealed that stringent budget control, and resolute scrutiny of government financial reports, significantly improve the practice of stewardship accounting in the Government Ministries. It was recommended that the government of Cameroon should frankly facilitate the participation of parliamentarians, civil society organisations, advocacy groups, and the citizens, in the budget preparation and execution processes. Such sincere participation invokes debates on problematic trade-offs and opportunity costs which are crucial in improving the wellbeing of Cameroonians. It was further recommended that parliamentarians should effectively play their role as representatives of the Cameroonian people, not withstanding their political inclinations. Consequently, they will not falter in their responsibility to resolutely scrutinise and authorise the budgets, and hold the Government and its Ministries fully accountable. The last recommendation was that Article 66 of the Cameroon Constitution (lying dormant since 2006) be put into practice. Article 66 provides for the declaration of assets by senior government officials, and others elected or appointed, at the beginning and at the end of their office tenures.
Highlights
Stewardship accounting may be defined as an accounting practice where some people manage a variety of resources on behalf of the owners
The budgets and financial reports are deliberately given to MPs very late every year. This cause MPs to rush over them with little or no scrupulousness in assessing the practice of the government stewardship accounting. With all this in mind, the broad objective of this paper was to assess the extent to which stewardship accounting is practiced by Government Ministries in Cameroon
This research empirically investigated how the practice of stewardship accounting by Government Ministries in Cameroon is affected by inclusive budget planning, timely budget execution, budget control by MPs, and resolute scrutiny of complete set of government financial statements by MPs
Summary
Stewardship accounting may be defined as an accounting practice where some people manage a variety of resources on behalf of the owners. The government be it at the national or local level has the obligation to render periodic accounts of its stewardship. The citizens through their representatives called members of parliament (MPs) or members of the house of assembly interrogate the government on the budget preparation, implementation, and control processes. The citizens will retain or sanction the government based on the perception they have about the way their national resources are being managed
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