Abstract
The accountability of officials in public sector is a vital problem, as the availability of funds allocated among various public agencies and power abuse possibilities may create a dangerous environment breeding corruption. To avoid the erosion of the state apparatus, societies and citizens participate in governmental control through various forms of accountability and its initiatives. Democracy, the elimination of corruption and money mismanagement, the enhancement of state public sector efficiency, and the establishment of transparency are the undeniable benefits of public officials’ accountability. However, even the most well developed forms of accountability are far from flawless. Depending on a country, these approaches may find fertile ground or meet with aggressive state opposition.
Keywords: public, official, sector, accountability, dignitary, power
Power is synonymous with infinite authority and implicit opportunities. Over the centuries, palaces, the houses of parliament, and other power-associated buildings and establishments have seen various top authority figures rise to power. The extent to which these officials enjoyed their ultimate authorities determined the democratic, economic, social, and cultural development of their respective countries. Sometimes carte blanche granted to top officials can let them loose. Power in the hands of officials owning a large capital can lure them into increasing their material possessions. There should be ever-present fear lest corporate interests and business circles not guide the actions of senior public officials. Since if they do, the country risks becoming a timocracy, in which property owners dominate the top line of command. The lack of proper accountability and transparency can make state transformations invisible to ordinary people. The value of transparency is in its potential of deterring power elites from indulging their own ambitions and lust for power and wealth. An old aphorism suggests that power corrupts while absolute power corrupts absolutely. The litmus paper of democracy and power integrity, accountability in various shapes and forms is the restraining factor that provides against corruption and the erosion of the state machinery, yet its forms may be difficult to implement, depending on the country.
The Importance of Accountability
People always expect politicians to be accountable for their actions, which is the tendency that has its own rationales. Fyall (2012) noted that governance in the 21st century involved actors besides governmental dignitaries and employees. Milward and Provan (2000) minted the concept of “hollow state,” whereby they defined the current state of government, in which the third party contractors composed shadow government that conducted governmental business without accountability or visibility as is expected from public agencies (as cited in Fyall, 2012). Accountability allows making the process of contract granting and business conducting transparent, which eliminates the very possibility of corrupt practices and law violation. Auditor of Khorasan Razavi’s Audit Court, Jamal Mohammadi (2011) suggested that public accountability was a prerequisite for democracy and a complement to public administration. It gives officials representing public sector the image of dutifulness, trust, transparency, fairness, moral decency, and justice. Attempts of strengthening accountability in the society by means of public awareness promotion will increase the expectations of people for services enhancement, which will result in the overall improvement of the entire public sector (Mohammadi, 2011). Bovens (2007) noted that accountability mattered since it performed three basic functions or democratic, constitutional, and learning roles. It provides for democratic control, deter corruption and power abuse, and increases the efficacy and effectiveness (as cited in Maccarthaigh and Boyle, 2014).
Types, Forms, and Mechanisms of Accountability
Mohammadi (2011) stated that the accountability of managers from public sector had diverse political, organizational legal, administrative, and professional dimensions, which makes it more complex than private sector. Public officials should be accountable at such levels of strategy as performance in aspects like economy and efficiency, programme in the aspect like effectiveness, commitment and legitimacy in such aspects as abidance by regulations, and process in aspects like allocation, planning, and administration. There are five types of accountability for managers from public sector in a democratic system. If organizational accountability is in place, responsibility may come in the form of high-echelon dignitaries questioning top officials running public organizations and holding them accountable for their professional duties. Political accountability obliges ministers to appear before the parliament in order to answer the questions of representatives (Mohammadi, 2011).
This form of political accountability cannot but remind of question time, common in the parliament of the United Kingdom and other Crown dominions or the subjects of the Commonwealth. This form of accountability obliges ministers, including the prime minister him or herself to answer the questions of those in attendance. Mohammadi (2011) went on to note that a legal accountability made managers from public sector appear before the court in order to be accountable for their actions as a form of responsibility for their actions and duty execution. International criteria and legal standards are said to be the cornerstones of this category. Administrative accountability made public sector officials accountable for operational, administrative, and financial affairs. Professional accountability apply to public sector top officials who abide by professional standards in respect of their expertise. This type of accountability for dignitaries may be in the shape of questioning conducted by professional associations who assess their commitment to the standards (Mohammadi, 2011).
Sharma (2008) suggested that there were three main forms of public sector accountability. Vertical accountability is the one imposed on governmental formally by means of electoral processes as well as indirectly by means of civil societies and citizens, inclusive of media, by which the external actors look to implement the standards of good performance on public dignitaries. In the case of horizontal accountability, governments impose it internally via institutional mechanisms for checks and balances and oversight. It refers to the national institutions capacity of checking abuses committed by other public agencies and governmental braches.
Besides reciprocal checks and balances conducted by judiciary, executive, legislative, and other agencies, horizontal accountability institutions comprise human rights machineries, anti-corruption commissions, ombudsmen, auditors-general, sectoral regulatory agencies, and legislative public-accounts committees. Diagonal or hybrid accountability implies the participation of a civil society or citizens in the horizontal mechanisms of accountability. These may be state watchdog or oversight mechanisms like anti-corruption commissions. Goetz and Jenkins (2001) noted that the hybrid accountability allows citizens to assume watchdog roles in oversight functions, which eliminates the monopoly of official executive oversight possessed by the state (as cited in Sharma, 2008).
According to The importance of public accountability (n.d.), public accountability in the USA appears in the forms of social and fiscal responsibility, each carrying rules regulated via administrative laws. As far as fiscal accountability is concerned, it implies a number of important steps. This form is to operate within the allocated budget of a public agency. Simply put, fiscal accountability necessitates watching over dimes and nickels to ensure the appropriate spending of the American taxpayers’ money. While the governmental agency can spend more funds than allocated, this mostly is the case with emergency management agencies inasmuch as no legislative body of the government can predict issues that may have place during the year while formulating the budget. If the mismanagement of state funds should occur or not all funds allotted should be used, the Federal Government by means of oversight committees supervising governmental agencies should take legal measures to punish those responsible for taxpayers’ money mismanagement. This category of accountability implies the detailed accounting of all expenditures resubmitted at yearend to the legislature that ensures the agency fulfilled its tasks.
When it comes to social accountability, this category has multiple manifestations. Plenty of public agency laws contain guiding principles for the conduct of state employees, which ensures the performance of work in an ethically acceptable way. These principles emphasize the elimination of practices that deceive the US public and ensure the unbiased awarding of governmental contracts. If there is one extremely intricate issue faced by the American government, it is contract abuse since it may be difficult to diminish the natural interconnection between industries and oversight agencies. Violations in the province of social accountability are fraught with consequences, with the American Government taking legal actions against whoever breaches their social contracts with the US public. This holds true for both agencies and elected dignitaries. On some occasions, agencies may overstep all limitations in an effort to accomplish their mandate. In doing so, they violate certain pieces of legislation in the realm of social responsibility (The importance of public accountability n.d.). Fiscal and social accountabilities are, by far, the most important forms of responsibility since money and ethics are the two realm, in which the infractions of laws and norms are most likely to happen.
Ingraham (2005) stated that the 21st century required new methods of accountability. Performance evaluation emphasized in recent years is one of potential options (as cited in Fyall, 2012). Dubnick (2005) suggested that the requirement of the assessment of public outcomes rather than the inputs or outputs of public agencies could reveal the whole network of actors rather than separate parts that may fail to clarify the whole. In this respect, satisfactory public service delivery implies the accountability of a network, with all actors involved evaluated according to the end product (as cited in Fyall, 2012). Receiving information piecemeal will not make it possible for citizens to see the full picture of the public sector. The evaluation of public outcomes, in turn, shifts the focus of attention on the product of efforts made by public officials. If positive, the outcome certainly indicates the transparency and compliance with state laws and regulations.
The Difficulties of Implementing Various Forms of Accountability
Fyall (2012) claimed that performance evaluation was insufficient as the method of accountability. Democratic values require that public accountability go beyond the identity or nature of public service delivery to the reasons and ways of the process, that is to say, public services are inseparable from the processes that produced them in a society founded on the values of fairness, equity, and transparency. For a network to be accountable, it needs to be able to show that the means and the ends are justified. Subsequently, though giving a measure of insight into public actors’ efficiency, performance evaluation does not offer a sufficient mechanism for securing accountability (Fyall, 2012). Following this logic, the USA cultivating the values of fairness and equity seems to be the country, in which performance evaluation does not yield sufficient results even though it allows reviewing the efficacy of public officials.
As has been mentioned above, there is a natural interconnectivity between American industries and oversight agencies, which is the reason contract abuses have place. Given that interconnection, social accountability will remain a difficult accountability to implement. Governmental officials overseeing the compliance with social accountability regulations need to be corruption-free. Much the same can be said of oversight committees that supervise governmental agencies and identify the need for legal actions against public fund abusers. The corruptibility of any agency official can theoretically disrupt the entire chain of accountability and investigation, causing state actors mired in money mismanagement to go unpunished. While less likely in the USA, the corruptibility of monitoring agencies overseeing fiscal regularities poses undeniable problem in East European countries, such as Russia.
Fiscal accountability that tracks money mismanagement or failure to use the funds allocated may have room for miscalculations by accounting total expenditures. Lastly and most importantly, the spending of more money than allotted as per budgetary distribution is not necessarily the act of corruption since the state agency, such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency may have to spend more on the accident or natural calamity prevention, thus overspending their budget. Thus, spending more than budgeted for is not always a corrupt practice, which may nonetheless lead to ungrounded corruption allegations and charges.
Speaking of vertical accountability, this category has one major flaw. The indirect from of accountability imposed on the government is achievable through media. The problem is that some countries like Russia or the People’s Republic of China have puppet media outlets that cannot hold the official government accountable for their actions. To quote an example, Radio Television Hong Kong found itself under the strong influence of Beijing looking to turn it into its own means of propaganda. In the case of Russia, its media outlets have mostly been taken over oil and gas monopolists that have them communicate newscast compliant with the political agenda of the Kremlin. Frankly speaking, the country will not surrender its monopoly of official executive oversight in the context of hybrid accountability.
Conclusions
Ordinary citizens naturally expect their public officials to be accountable for the actions and time in power. Accountability provides against shadow cabinets, hidden agendas, third party contractors, the lack of business transparency, the violation of contract granting procedures, and power abuse. The presence of accountability provides public officials with the image of dutifulness, trust, transparency, fairness, moral decency, and justice. Democratic control and power efficiency also complement the list of apparent benefits of accountability. Political accountability that obliges ministers to appear before the parliament in order to answer the questions of representatives reminds of the accountability form practiced in the UK. Legal accountability has a specific form of responsibility that makes managers from public sector appear before the court in order to be accountable for their actions. Those subject to professional accountability may face questions put by professional associations who assess their commitment to professional standards.
Apart from these forms that stem from different accountability types, the society may impose vertical, horizontal or diagonal accountability on public officials. Vertical responsibility is applicable through either electoral processes or civil society and citizens. The hybrid pattern makes the authorities hand over their monopoly of executive oversight to citizens who assume watchdog roles. Horizontal accountability institutions comprise human rights machineries, anti-corruption commissions, ombudsmen, auditors-general, sectoral regulatory agencies, and legislative public-accounts committees all ensuring the accountability of public dignitaries. In the USA, there are two remarkable accountability types, such as fiscal and social accountability. The former helps oversee the proper management of taxpayers’ money and punish those responsible for the misapplication of funds. The latter looks to it that public employees’ conduct is compliant with ethically and morally acceptable norms. These two accountabilities are arguably the most essential since violations are likely to occur in the areas of money and ethics.
Performance evaluation is considered a modern accountability instrument of responsibility that allows focusing on public outcomes rather than the outputs and inputs of public agencies that provide a partial picture. However, performance assessment is difficult to implement due to its insufficiency even though its gives insight into the efficacy of public actors. The natural interconnectivity between American industries and oversight agencies, audit miscalculations, and the inability of public agencies to budget for all potential expenses can make fiscal accountability hard to implement. The same holds true for the vertical responsibility in countries like Russia and China, in which state-controlled media outlets render accountability efforts nearly useless.
References
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Maccarthaigh, M., and Boyle, R. (2014, January). Civil service accountability: challenge and change. Institute of Public Administration, Dublin, Ireland. Retrieved from: http://www.ipa.ie/pdf/IPA_Accountability_2014.pdf
Mohammadi, J. (2011). Accountability of public sector managers. Iran’s Ministry of Economic Affairs and Finance New Centre. Retrieved from: http://en.shada.ir/portal/Home/ShowPage.aspx?Object=NEWS&ID=a440fe99-463f-4ad3-8382-7ac24b7a6a6c&WebPartID=e151390e-1c9d-4dfb-9862-f05aa6abad20&CategoryID=46cb8ef0-54f6-413e-946e-14ff2d5e1329
Sharma, B. (2008, August). Voice, accountability, and civic engagement. A conceptual overview. Overseas Development Institute, London, United Kingdom. Retrieved from: http://www.undp.org/content/dam/undp/documents/partners/civil_society/publications/2008_UNDP_Voice-Accountability-and-Civic-Engagement_EN.pdf
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