FAILURE IN ACCOUNTABILITY IS A FAILURE OF GOVERNANCE
There are
four pillars of good governance that build, restore, and main public trust
which are Transparency, accessibility, responsiveness and accountability.
Accountability is a dear issue and is in consonance with the pro national
reconstruction philosophy crusade and institutional rearticulation. Devoid of
the norm of accountability, African states are still haggling with self created
dilemma of failure to smelt a strong iron of elements to decolonise Africa from
the horrors of colonialism and the nightmares of neocolonialism.
Accountability
circumscribes the Democratic values with a function of ingenuity and a
normative governance framework that my wananchi granny from the hills of
mombokolo will proudly call "good". After independence, and in tandem
the Democratic consolidation of uprooting autocratic reigns, accountability
could be a switch to the "Africa's third liberation" which is good
governance.
The
practical divide between first and third worlds is explained by the essential
quality difference between the extractive and inclusive institutions that
dominate the national profile. A political institution is inclusive when it commands
a boundless spectrum of citizen's participation that doesn't alienate the tenet
of accountability while extractive institutions are anciently emperor-faceted and
confined to the narrow interests of elite formations. Therefore lack of
accountability since it hides wrong and hampers flow of yielding people's opinions,
gives understanding of how and why Africa's institutional dynamics are harshly
extractive with a burning stew of inherently patrimonial political
disorientation.
In my
opinion, I attempted why we lack accountability: it could be due to persistent
and underlying cultural hypothesis where modern leaders still hold on to
chieftaincy syndrome where the subjects would gather the good yields of their
harvests (modern day taxes) in the chief's backyard and ofcourse never question
how consumed. There are two truths; the first is that cultural frameworks can shape
the political and economic behavior, pacifying is the second truth that
institutional consolidation is vital in undermining cultural traditions that hamper
accountability on which Democratic governance is premised.
Politicised
bureaucracy is also a problem to accountability since this creates two syndromes
of many hands with a popular question "who accounts?" and the
syndrome of many eyes with a famous question "who is accounted to?".
The latter parenthesis quotes a scenario that would get a common response of
"every citizen has a right to be accounted to". Though most African
governments play their Aces individually well and politically wrong by having social
classes of who deserves this right.
I think Africa
should do the following to foster accountability: openness on the government
performance and future decisions aided by access to information: governments
should apply the principle of subsidiarity and use of ICT to bring the citizens
closer; this can be done through E-government guided by the UN e-government
readiness index which involves the web measure index premised on the quality of
e-services and e-products, the telecommunications infrastructure index premised
the infrastructure capacity and lastly the education index premised on people's
capacity to understand such ICT systems. Ensuring robust external audit by
independent authorities and facilitating sector specific watchdogs. establishing
ombudsman offices where citizens can launch their appeals, claims and
complaints.
Creating employee contractual frameworks based on principal-agent
logic with incentives such as sanctions linked to performance; merit should be
fundamental in attaining professional and corruption-free administration amidst
strong employment ethics guided by the civil service charters such as the
iberoamerican civil service charter with powerful amor to foster professional
public service: this would foster accountability. Strengthening parliamentary
scrutiny by giving power to Parliament to launch inquiries and expand public
consultation in a bid to complement elective democracy.
If in an
interview you listed the thieves you knew minus your uncountable self, my dear you
failed the interview. Accountability is indubitably an indispensable consonant
in the alphabet of good Democratic governance. Not only as its hallmark but
also as a sine qua non.
BY
KANSIIME ONESMUS
Kansmus@gmail.com
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