The Sunday
Times Economic analysis
Decline in accountability must be arrested soon
By the Economist
It has been quite clear for sometime that successive
governments have been lax about the accountability of public funds. The
media has exposed many instances of such irresponsibility in the past,
especially with respect to the use of funds and materials by the last regime.
The situation got out of hand in the last months of the last regime. What
the press stated has now been confirmed and documented by the new government.
However criticisms of the last government's lack of accountability would
not do much good, if the new government does not take meaningful steps
to ensure that they themselves adhere to the principles of accountability.
Those who come into office do not follow what they said while in opposition.
This in fact is the reason for the continuous erosion in accountability
over the years.
It is now time to return to the accepted principles of public accountability
in the use of public funds. The basic principle of public accountability
is that the people's representatives in parliament must control the allocation
and use of funds. This has two aspects. First there is the need to ensure
that the total amount of money that is allocated is spent and that this
amount is not exceeded. Second, the allocation of funds must be fairly
specific to ensure meaningful accountability.
If funds are allocated to a particular ministry and spent without adhering
to specific intended uses then the use of such funds could be a diversion
from the intended allocations of parliament. Both these areas of accountability
have not been adhered to. One of the subtle ways by which governments have
eroded public accountability in a constitutional manner is by not including
actual expected expenditures in the budget, but passing additional amounts
through supplementary votes. This may not seem an erosion of accountability
for parliament does approve such expenditures. The fact is that these supplementary
votes are not fully debated, often rushed through parliament and in many
cases a depleted house passes these votes. Therefore unlike the case of
the budget, when the membership of the full house of parliament is focused
on the revenue and expenditure estimates, supplementary estimates are hardly
examined in detail. Further, when such supplementary estimates are very
large the original scrutiny of the budget becomes meaningless. In fact
it has been said that the budget debate is on a fictitious budget, as the
final out-turn is vastly different to the budget estimates. This is especially
so with respect to the expenditure of the government.
There has also been a tendency in recent years for budget allocations
to be general rather than specific and for ministries to shift funds from
one item to another. Where such shifting is significant, it leads to considerable
erosion of parliamentary responsibility.
There is another area of abuse that has occurred where public property
has been used for private purposes. This tendency gains momentum at times
of elections, when vehicles, building, fuel stationery and other materials
and services of the government are used to provide services to parties,
politicians and ministers, in particular. A further abuse is by the use
of resources of public corporations. Since large scale use of resources
of corporations add to their expenditures and then ultimately to their
bottom line, there is either a loss of revenue through decreased profits
or increased subsidies to corporations that should have run up profits.
The government must act in several ways to ensure that public funds are
used responsibly.
First, it is necessary to appoint a parliamentary committee to investigate
the abuses of the past. Second, the established procedures to control public
finances must be made more effective and operative. The Public Accounts
Committee must be constituted with competent members with the opposition
playing a key role and armed with more powers to deal with abuses. Third,
the government must refrain from excessive use of supplementary estimates
and ensure that the budget reflects the actual out-turn. There is also
perhaps a need to put in place mechanisms that would ensure an accountability
of expenditure from special funds that are not voted annually by parliament. |
