Public Accountability Mechanisms Research Articles

Public Accountability Mechanisms, a Panacea to Improve Policy in South African Municipalities: Navigating through the New Public Management to Create Public Value and Effective Service Delivery

Public Accountability Mechanisms, a Panacea to Improve Policy in South African Municipalities: Navigating through the New Public Management to Create Public Value and Effective Service Delivery

A Mid-Term Review of Nigeria’s Progress Towards Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations were adopted in September 2015 as a follow-up to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which had ended with very little success in Nigeria. Though the 17 ambitious goals of the SDGs are expected to be achieved in 2030, evidence shows that Nigeria did not only carry the goals of MDGs into the SDGs era but also began the implementation of the SDGs late, after the first Voluntary National Review (VNR) in 2017. This study reviewed Nigeria’s progress towards sustainable development with consideration to the international treaty signed by UN member countries for achieving the SDGs in 2030. A descriptive historical research design was adopted for the study, while data were gathered from the official websites of government and inter-governmental organizations and national newspapers that were purposively selected and compared to ensure data quality. Two research questions were answered in a content review analysis. Findings revealed that Nigeria has a structure in place across levels of government to ensure the smooth implementation of the SDGs; compared to the SDGs baseline report of 2016, and the SDGs index rankings from 2019 to 2022, Nigeria’s progress towards achieving the SDGs in 2030 has been slow and poor; and that corruption among public officials, poor budgetary allocations to health and education, rising poverty and youth unemployment rates, and weak development policies and programs, are the major challenges affecting the progress of SDGs implementation in Nigeria. The study recommended the urgent need to review and strengthen government institutions and policies, introduce stringent laws against corruption, establish mechanisms for public transparency and accountability in governance, and promote reward good behaviours in public offices.

Transparency of local government financial statements: Analyzing citizens’ perceptions

AbstractWorldwide, open data initiatives aim at making information publicly available and transparent. Increasingly, local governments (LGs) are publishing financial statements in order to inform citizens, in their function as both service recipients and resource providers, about the LGs’ financial situation. However, it remains questionable as to whether LG financial statements are appropriate mechanisms of public accountability: it is debated, on the one hand, whether citizens are interested in accounting information, and on the other hand, if they are able to understand the information presented in financial statements. This study is the first of its kind applying the think aloud method to analyze citizens’ perceptions of LGs’ financial statements in a sample of 30 German citizens with diverse socio‐demographic characteristics. The paper explores citizens’ general interest in accounting information and their ability to extract basic financial information from these statements so that increased transparency can be assumed. This explorative study reveals that although citizens demand transparency and financial information, they find it challenging to understand financial statements. Citizens seem to be overwhelmed by the information and call for delegation of the tasks or simplified reporting formats.

An exploration of public accountability and service delivery at the Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality in the Eastern Cape province, South Africa

Background: The South African public sector still faces numerous challenges of public accountability and corruption 26 years post the establishment of a democratic government and a free society. These challenges are mainly found in the local sphere of government which is the heart of where service delivery takes place.Aim: This article aimed to examine the public accountability strategies and mechanisms being used at the Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality in the Eastern Cape province whilst giving a conceptual view of how corruption and maladministration adversely affected the municipality and province.Setting: This study was conducted at the Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality in the Eastern Cape province, South Africa.Method: The study adopted an explanatory sequential design based on a mixed-methods approach where data was collected through questionnaires and secondary documents. Data was analysed through a comparative lens and thematic analysis. A total sample of 47 participants was chosen through a purposive sampling technique.Results: The key findings of the study revealed that there is a lack of communication between local government and the residents. As well as poor implementation of accountability mechanisms and capacity issues, that is, lack of training and resources amongst others contributed to the ailing public accountability and service delivery issues.Conclusions: Conclusions drawn reflect a municipality that is struggling with huge backlogs on service delivery. Furthermore, public accountability mechanisms exist but implementation is a challenge. Recommendations included enhanced community engagement and participation, capacity building and skills development, the promotion of individual independence of the community, enhancement of resources and infrastructure and the enhancement of the Public Participation Unit.

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY MECHANISMS IN THE SOUTH AFRICAN LOCAL GOVERNMENT CONTEXT: DURING AND POST COVID-19 PANDEMIC

This paper extensively investigates the effectiveness of public accountability mechanisms in the South African local government context during and post the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid19) pandemic. Therefore, this paper argues that the adopted public accountability mechanisms at the municipal level are rigid and not adaptive to the new normal ushered in by the Covid-19 pandemic. The Covid-19 pandemic forced many countries including South Africa, to adopt policies to control mass gatherings and community events, as they are believed to be superspreader events. Local governments habitually used public meetings to inform communities about issues and consult them about development programs affecting them directly before the Covid19 pandemic. This paper is purely conceptual, relied profoundly on literature to fortify the argument. This study utilizes a qualitative research technique to achieve the objectives of this study. The study reveals that the adopted and established public accountability mechanisms at the local government sphere are not adaptive and effective to the new normal. The conclusion that can be drawn from this paper is that there is an urgent need for the government to revisit and formulate more adaptive and effective public accountability mechanisms.

Personal Liability: Forging New Tools of Accountability in Public Law

In 1991, two decisions passed by benches headed by Kuldip Singh J. marked an unprecedented shift to holding public officers personally liable to pay damages for arbitrary orders. The Supreme Court of India imposed damages to the quantum of fifty lakh rupees on Captain Satish Sharma, the former Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas, for arbitrarily allotting fifteen petrol outlets out of his discretionary quota to allottees related to him or his officials. Similarly, Sheila Kaul, the former Minister of Urban Development, was ordered to pay damages of sixty lakh rupees for illegal allotment of shops from her discretionary quota to her associates. While the two decisions ushered in a revolution of personal liability in the arena of public law, one was overturned by a review judgement, and the other has been simply forgotten despite being upheld in the review petition. In light of the growing number and prominence of misfeasance by public officers, this article considers the need for rethinking the theory of personal liability to compensate the public or individual loss adequately, deter the officials and assess it as an alternative to traditional mechanisms of public accountability.

A validated measurement for felt relational accountability in the public sector: gauging the account holder’s legitimacy and expertise

ABSTRACT The effectiveness of formal public sector accountability mechanisms is largely predicated on the individual perception of accountability. In particular, the individual’s experienced relationship to account holders is key in understanding the effects of formal accountability mechanisms. This article develops a measurement instrument for felt relational accountability in public administration. We measure perceived legitimacy and expertise of the account holder, as crucial relational dimensions applicable to various accountability relations. The instrument was tested and cross validated among two samples of Dutch public employees. We discuss theoretical implications of studying accountability at the actor-level and provide practical applications of the instrument.

Health management committee strengthening and community mobilisation through women\u2019s groups to improve trained health worker attendance at birth in rural Nepal: a cluster randomised controlled trial

BackgroundEngaging citizens and communities to make services accountable is vital to achieving health development goals. Community participation in health management committees can increase public accountability of health services. We conducted a cluster randomised controlled trial to test the impact of strengthened health management committees (HMCs) and community mobilisation through women’s groups on institutional deliveries and deliveries by trained health workers in rural Nepal.MethodsThe study was conducted in all Village Development Committee clusters in the hills district of Makwanpur (population of 420,500). In 21 intervention clusters, we conducted three-day workshops with HMCs to improve their capacity for planning and action and supported female community health volunteers to run women’s groups. These groups met once a month and mobilised communities to address barriers to institutional delivery through participatory learning and action cycles. We compared this intervention with 22 control clusters. Prospective surveillance from October 2010 to the end of September 2012 captured complete data on 13,721 deliveries in intervention and control areas. Analysis was by intention to treat.ResultsThe women’s group intervention was implemented as intended, but we were unable to support HMCs as planned because many did not meet regularly. The activities of community based organisations were systematically targeted at control clusters, which meant that there were no true ‘control’ clusters. 39% (5403) of deliveries were in health institutions and trained health workers attended most of them. There were no differences between trial arms in institutional delivery uptake (1.45, 0.76–2.78) or attendance by trained health workers (OR 1.43, 95% CI 0.74–2.74).ConclusionsThe absence of a true counterfactual and inadequate coverage of the HMC strengthening intervention impedes our ability to draw conclusions. Further research is needed to test the effectiveness of strengthening public accountability mechanisms on increased utilisation of services at delivery.Trial registrationCurrent Controlled Trials ISRCTN99834806.Date of registration:28/09/10.

The protected polluters: Empirical evidence from the national environmental information disclosure program in China

As a bottom-up approach, the effectiveness of the environmental information transparency policy hinges on a broad societal ecosystem, including elements such as the active mass media and the robust civil society. However, due to the lack of public participation and accountability mechanisms, it is still doubtful whether the Chinese environmental transparency program promoted corporate pollution mitigation efforts. In this study, we investigated the impacts of the Environmental Information Disclosure (EID) program, an important Chinese environmental transparency program, on corporate mitigation investments, by using the 2012 Chinese Private Enterprise Survey. Our Tobit-IV model provides robust evidence that transparency policy exerts significant influences only on non-politically connected polluters, while, by contrast, politically connected firms are less susceptible to the EID program. We suggest that the community should be empowered to deter the shelter effects of local governors to the connected firms, which deteriorate the effectiveness of the transparency program.

Validity of russian science policy’s instruments: what the world’s experience says?

Basing on the analysis of large number of studies revealing the mainstream science policy’s consequences the paper shows that Russian state science policy includes the instruments preventing achieving the pronounced goals. It is established that at least following components are scientifically groundless: chosen mechanisms for increase public accountability of science; intentions to apply competitive research funding ubiquitously; tendency to concentrate research at the universities, and perform it mainly by efforts of professors; trend to amalgamate research organizations. The results of empiric research from different countries shows that in reality society’s accountability is bureaucrats’ accountability. Competitive research funding decrease probability of innovative researches that are far from mainstreams. Coercion of all academics to publish research papers especially in high-sited journals decrease time for increase lectures quality. Amalgamation of research organizations increase co-ordination costs, and not results to higher value scientific results.

Participatory learning and action to address type 2 diabetes in rural Bangladesh: a qualitative process evaluation

BackgroundDiabetes is 7th largest cause of death worldwide, and prevalence is increasing rapidly in low-and middle-income countries. There is an urgent need to develop and test interventions to prevent and control diabetes and develop the theory about how such interventions can be effective. We conducted a participatory learning and action (PLA) intervention with community groups in rural Bangladesh which was evaluated through a cluster randomised controlled trial. There was a large reduction in the combined prevalence of type 2 diabetes and intermediate hyperglycaemia in the PLA group compared with the control group. We present findings from qualitative process evaluation research to explore how this intervention was effective.MethodsWe conducted group interviews and focus group discussions using photovoice with purposively sampled group attenders and non-attenders, and intervention implementers. Data were collected before the trial analysis. We used inductive content analysis to generate theory from the data.ResultsThe intervention increased the health literacy of individuals and communities - developing their knowledge, capacity and self-confidence to enact healthy behaviours. Community, household and individual capacity increased through social support and social networks, which then created an enabling community context, further strengthening agency and enabling community action. This increased opportunities for healthy behaviour. Community actions addressed lack of awareness about diabetes, gendered barriers to physical activity and lack of access to blood glucose testing. The interaction between the individual, household, and community contexts amplified change, and yet there was limited engagement with macro level, or ‘state’, barriers to healthy behaviour.ConclusionsThe participatory approach enabled groups to analyse how context affected their ability to have healthy behaviours and participants engaged with issues as a community in the ways that they felt comfortable. We suggest measuring health literacy and social networks in future interventions and recommend specific capacity strengthening to develop public accountability mechanisms and health systems strengthening to complement community-based interventions.Trial registrationRegistered at ISRCTN on 30th March 2016 (Retrospectively Registered) Registration number: ISRCTN41083256.

Reforming government public accountability: the case of Thailand

PurposePublic accountability was formally imposed on the Thai Government in 1997 when the World Bank compelled public sector reforms as a condition for bailing the country from bankruptcy. Despite regulating to promote public accountability for 20 years, the public accountability of Thai Government is still criticized as poor. However, the specific areas of public accountability needing improvement have not been clearly identified in Thailand. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the Thai Government discharges its public accountability.Design/methodology/approachPrior literature supported annual reports as essential means by which public sector entities discharge their public accountability, and addressed the desirable aspects of reporting which permit the public’s monitoring of their government’s performance. That is: the account must be publicly accessible, timely, reliable and adequate. This paper evaluates the 2016 annual reports of the Thai Central Government departments against these aspects in tandem with the reporting regulations.FindingsThe results show that reliability and timeliness of annual report disclosures are the most problematic, followed by accessibility and adequacy. It was also found that the existing regulations provide only mild sanctions on government officers for their non-compliance. Further, statistical evidence suggests that larger departments report better on voluntary items than departments with smaller revenue.Originality/valueThese weaknesses of the reporting and regulations provide immediate suggestions for public policy regulators as to how to improve the Thai Government’s public accountability. These results are also expected to be useful to international lending institutions to be aware of particular issues when considering their foreign aid programs. Theoretically, the paper supports the necessity of public accountability mechanisms, in particular public sanctions, which need to be strong enough to motivate governments’ public accountability. It also highlights that public accountability aspects can be useful to measure or evaluating public sector reporting in emerging countries such as Thailand.

Changing public accountability mechanisms in the governance of Dutch urban regeneration

ABSTRACTContemporary urban planning dynamics are based on negotiation and contractual relations, creating fragmented planning processes. On the one hand, they trigger technocratic forms of governance, which require the ‘legal instrumentalisation’ of planning in a piecemeal approach ensuring legal certainty. On the other hand, these processes require flexibility to enable easy, fast and efficient forms of implementation due to the increasing involvement of private sector actors in urban development. This article unravels the influence of these conflicting dynamics on the fundamentals of urban planning practices by focusing on changing public accountability mechanisms created through contractual relationships between public and private sector agencies. Dutch urban regeneration has demonstrated changing governance principles and dynamics in the last three decades. Representing instrumental and institutional measures, we connect accountability mechanisms to these changes and argue that they ‘co-exist’ in multiple forms across different contexts. This article embeds this evolution in wider theoretical discussions on the changing relationships between public and private sector actors in urban governance relative to the changing role of the state, and it addresses questions on who can be held accountable, and to what extent, when public sector actors are increasingly retreating from regulatory practices while private sector actors play increasingly prominent roles.

Do legal prescriptions ensure public accountability? Insights and lessons from local governments in Bangladesh

This article, which is based on qualitative research, addresses legally-prescribed mechanisms of public accountability and the extent of their use and effect at the lowest level of local government in Bangladesh. The findings are that, while various mechanisms have been established, they have not been effective in holding local representatives to account for what they do and achieve. The main reasons for this have been the unresponsiveness of the representatives, as well as the inability and/or reluctance of local residents to exercise their formal rights of participation and control. These matters pose fundamental challenges which must be the focus of comprehensive change and reform aimed at significantly strengthening local governance and democracy.

Problems of Public Accountability in Village Government Business Management (Study on Village Business Enterprises in Banyumas, Indonesia)

The modern government is required to be able to run the business for the social welfare improvement. By utilizing public funds for business, public accountability mechanisms must be well-executed. The Indonesian Government is currently actively encouraging the village government to develop the business based on local potency. However, with various limitations, the process of managing the Village Owned Enterprise has not been accompanied by adequate public accountability. Therefore this paper discusses the problematic of carrying out public accountability mechanisms at the village level. The phenomenon of public accountability deficit can be seen from the vertical and horizontal dimensions. Through quantitative and qualitative research, the results show that business management in village government has not been accompanied by adequate public accountability. Responsibility mechanisms conducted either vertically, or horizontally have not run optimally. headman still dominates the village government, as a result the spirit of corporation in the management of the village business can not be realized. Therefore, in the future, accountability mechanisms in managing the Village Government Business should be directed towards optimizing the role of stakeholders through a governance approach. Through this approach, it is expected that public accountability will lead to the involvement of all stakeholders in the management of public wealth.

When do anticorruption laws matter? The evidence on public integrity enabling contexts

This paper asks if there is evidence that the most common legislation recommended and used in the current anticorruption toolkit is effective in reducing corruption and if specific contexts can be identified which enable or disable effective legislation for control of corruption. The paper draws on documented public accountability and anticorruption tools from the PAM, the public accountability mechanisms database of the World Bank, and documents additional ones, including an index of anticorruption regulatory density, comprising anticorruption agencies, existence of an Ombudsman, restrictions to party finance legislation and others. While only fiscal transparency and financial disclosures are found to be significant, the interaction of some tools with context elements, such as freedom of the press of independence of the judiciary enhances their impact. The paper argues finally that the effectiveness of some anticorruption tools is strictly dependent on context, especially the existence of the rule of law, while others remain fully insignificant.

Liquid authority and political legitimacy in transnational governance

In this article we investigate the institutional mechanisms required for ‘liquid’ forms of authority in transnational governance to achieve normative political legitimacy. We understand authority in sociological terms as the institutionalized inducement of addressees to defer to institutional rules, directives, or knowledge claims. We take authority to be ‘liquid’ when it is characterized by significant institutional dynamism, fostered by its informality, multiplicity, and related structural properties. The article’s central normative claim is that the mechanisms prescribed to legitimize transnational governance institutions – such as accountability or experimentalist mechanisms – should vary with the liquid characteristics of their authority structures. We argue for this claim in two steps. We first outline our theoretical conception of political legitimacy – as a normative standard prescribing legitimizing mechanisms that support authorities’ collectively valuable governance functions – and we explain in theoretical terms why legitimizing mechanisms should vary with differing authority structures. We then present an illustrative case study of the interaction between liquid authority and legitimizing mechanisms of public accountability and pragmatic experimentalism in the context of transnational business regulation. We conclude by considering broader implications of our argument for both the design of legitimate transnational governance institutions, and future research agendas on transnational authority and legitimacy.

Fostering public accountability in South Africa: A reflection on challenges and successes

Accountability and oversight are constitutional requirements in all the spheres of government in the Republic of South Africa and their foundation is in the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa of 1996. All spheres of government are charged with the constitutional mandate of providing public services. The level of responsibility and public services provision also goes with the level of capacity of a particular sphere. However, most of the direct and visible services that the public receives are at the local sphere of government. As such, enormous resources are channelled towards this sphere of government so that the said public services could be provided. It is imperative that the three spheres of government account for the huge expenditures during the public service provision processes. The parliaments of national and provincial governments exercise oversight and accountability over their executives and administrations through the Public Accounts Committees, while the local sphere of government relies on the Municipal Public Accounts Committees. This article is theoretical in nature, and it seeks to explore the current state of public accountability in South Africa and to evaluate possible measures so as to enhance public accountability. The article argues that the current public accountability mechanisms are not efficient and effective. It is recommended that these mechanisms ought to be enhanced by inter alia capacitating the legislative bodies at national, provincial and local spheres of the government.

Opening Public Officials’ Coffers: A Quantitative Analysis of the Impact of Financial Disclosure Regulation on National Corruption Levels

Disclosure of income, assets and conflicts of interest can serve as powerful public accountability tools to draw attention to the abuse of public office, help prosecute corrupt offenders and create a culture of scrutiny in the public sector that deters corruption. Based on data of the World Bank’s Public Accountability Mechanisms initiative, we present the first indicator that captures a country’s financial disclosure in-law effort. By employing different panel data model specifications, we use this indicator to measure how the introduction of comprehensive financial disclosure systems impacted national corruption levels for 91 countries between 1996 and 2012. We present robust results that provide tentative evidence for a positive and significant relationship between a country’s capacity to control for corruption and the expansion of financial disclosure legislation for the years following the enactment.

Policy Choices for Progressive Realization of Universal Health Coverage Comment on "Ethical Perspective: Five Unacceptable Trade-offs on the Path to Universal Health Coverage".

In responses to Norheim’s editorial, this commentary offers reflections from Thailand, how the five unacceptable trade-offs were applied to the universal health coverage (UHC) reforms between 1975 and 2002 when the whole 64 million people were covered by one of the three public health insurance systems. This commentary aims to generate global discussions on how best UHC can be gradually achieved. Not only the proposed five discrete trade-offs within each dimension, there are also trade-offs between the three dimensions of UHC such as population coverage, service coverage and cost coverage. Findings from Thai UHC show that equity is applied for the population coverage extension, when the low income households and the informal sector were the priority population groups for coverage extension by different prepayment schemes in 1975 and 1984, respectively. With an exception of public sector employees who were historically covered as part of fringe benefits were covered well before the poor. The private sector employees were covered last in 1990. Historically, Thailand applied a comprehensive benefit package where a few items are excluded using the negative list; until there was improved capacities on technology assessment that cost-effectiveness are used for the inclusion of new interventions into the benefit package. Not only cost-effectiveness, but long term budget impact, equity and ethical considerations are taken into account. Cost coverage is mostly determined by the fiscal capacities. Close ended budget with mix of provider payment methods are used as a tool for trade-off service coverage and financial risk protection. Introducing copayment in the context of fee-for-service can be harmful to beneficiaries due to supplier induced demands, inefficiency and unpredictable out of pocket payment by households. UHC achieves favorable outcomes as it was implemented when there was a full geographical coverage of primary healthcare coverage in all districts and sub-districts after three decade of health infrastructure investment and health workforce development since 1980s. The legacy of targeting population group by different prepayment mechanisms, leading to fragmentation, discrepancies and inequity across schemes, can be rectified by harmonization at the early phase when these schemes were introduced. Robust public accountability and participation mechanisms are recommended when deciding the UHC strategy.