FINANCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY & GOVERNANCE IN AN EMERGING COUNTRY

Download This Article

Abstract

In the public sector the agents have the responsibility of being accountable to the exploitation of the resources towards service delivery. The public sector expenditure has been characterised with wasteful and fruitless, irregular and unauthorised expenditures. Therefore governance embraces the engagements set to certify that the anticipated upshots for stakeholders (citizens) are limpid and realized. This study is grounded on agency theory as it seeks out to analyse public expenditure and governance in South Africa’s public sector. The research study followed a qualitative research approach based on an interpretative philosophy which examined meaningful and symbolic content of qualitative data from 24 General Reports on The Provincial Audit Outcomes for the three periods (2012-2013; 2013-2014 and 2014-2015). The research results propose that public sector financial governance in South Africa is pitiable as the public agencies perpetrate an act of financial misdemeanour as they continue to errantly make irregular expenditures, unauthorised expenditures and, fruitless and wasteful expenditures. Public finance management reform is a necessity as it can aid governments move to single accounting systems across the public sector, permitting centralised planning and budgeting, as well as the capacity to observe the expenditure of funds centrally. It is recommended that governments should implement integrated financial management systems which allows for integrated budgeting, financial management, procurement and supply chain management.

Keywords: Financial Accountability, Governance, Wasteful Expenditure, Fruitless Expenditure, Irregular Expenditure, Unauthorised Expenditure

Date received: 21 January 2017

Date Accepted: 27 March 2017

How to cite this paper: Dzomira, S. (2017). Financial accountability & governance in an emerging country. Corporate Ownership & Control, 14(3-1), 204-208. https://doi.org/10.22495/cocv14i3c1art6