One of the biggest barriers to oversight is the lack of data. The oversight exercise cannot be exercised when the necessary and essential information about a particular policy is not available for scrutiny. Therefore, the lack of information/evidence makes the oversight exercise worthless since adequate examination of how the implementation exercise cannot be performed. Additionally, scrupulous and corrupt civil servants and oversight members can make these data disappear so that the civil servants in charge of the administration of policy cannot be held accountable. The oversight was to take the legal action against civil servants for failure to implement the public policies within the budget specified for the policy. The case will be dismissed on the lack of evidence, and the corrupt civil servants will walk free (Kettl, 411, 2014).
Moreover, at times the congress that is the main oversight body for the public administration is awash with a large volume of information to go through and limited time to scan all the documents. The large volume of data requires time and huge manpower to go through all the documents and complaints from the public all over the country. The oversight committee serves the whole country hence it’s not possible to go through all documents especially to policies that cover the whole country. Due to understaffing and huge information to go through some facts are overlooked. Additionally, the oversight may not get the opportunity to interview every civil servant so that they can explain how the implementation was carried out. Thus, thorough scrutiny will not take place, and hence some mistakes on the part of civil servants will not be dictated. Hence, the civil servants cannot be held accountable for these mistakes (Kettl, p414, 2014).
The constitution is another barrier to oversight exercise. The constitution is silent on most of the current and immerging issues. For example, the treatment of terrorist prisoners from other countries is immerging issues that were not present when the constitution question. Therefore, where the constitution is silent on how and who should perform oversight, it becomes a problem since the oversight cannot take place. None of the civil servants can be held accountable in case of any violation of law. Thus, this gives the civil servants and government agencies the freedom to implement the policy as they are pleased. Additionally the chance to misappropriate funds since they know they cannot be question or hold responsible for wrongdoing (Kettl, p403, 2014).
Reference
Kettl, D.F. (2014). Politics of the administrative process, 6th edition. Washington, DC: CQ Press. ISBN 13: 978-1-4833-3293-2
