Thesis (MTech (Public Management))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology. / The primary objective of this study was to contribute evidence and analysis that the administration of Parliament and structures such as portfolio committees can utilise during their oversight activities to ensure the successful implementation of the National Development Plan (NDP). In this regard, this study endeavoured to shed light on the current legislative, oversight and public participation practices of the National Assembly with respect to the executive. In particular, the study considered the strengths and weaknesses of the many ways in which Parliament pursues its mandate, through its oversight methods such as debates, questions, portfolio committee oversight activities, and legislation, amongst others. As such, the study’s recommendations are geared towards strengthening the capabilities of Parliament to deliver improved outcomes and, in so doing, raise the level of accountability within and throughout the institution. A number of gaps and weaknesses in the way in which Parliament executes its mandate were found. Significantly, accountability – which is the axis around which the roles of Members of Parliament and Parliament itself revolves – has been significantly weakened by competing political agendas. The highly political context and the proportional representative system influence the autonomy and commitments of Parliament. The NDP (2012:45) holds that “accountability is essential to democracy and that the accountability chain should be strengthened from top to bottom”. Serious questions emerged about the ability of Parliament to hold the executive to account. Capacity constraints which pertain to both members and staff and the building of coalitions (external expertise) were factors that require attention.

M.A. / The central problem of this research is to highlight the question of whether the public service should be subject to political control and how such control should be exercised. The objective of this dissertation was mainly to explore, describe and analyse the role of the institutions, mechanisms and processes of political control over the public service including perspectives in terms of the functional dependence of public servants in relation to these institutions, mechanisms and processes. It was also a purpose of this study to establish the nature of political control over the public service and the practical actions that could be taken at an institutional level to promote the balance of political control, political principles and the functional dependence of public servants in the state bureaucracy. The study also explored the variables influencing the meanings, foundations and processes of political control over the public service through the application of a literature study in terms of a conceptual and institutional overview of the state related concepts, phenomena, institutions, structures and processes that influence control over the public service. Furthermore, the variables influencing the meanings, foundations and processes of control, accountability and responsibility in terms of control over the public service in a democratic system of ministerial responsibility were also explored. The study also provided an integration and validation of the determinants of the hierarchical position of public servants in relation to political control over the public service as an essential ingredient of representative democracy.

published_or_final_version / Public Administration / Master / Master of Public Administration

No description available.

Thesis (M.A.) - Carleton University, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 128-132). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

published_or_final_version / abstract / Public Administration / Master / Master of Public Administration

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences. / Department of Government and Public Administration

This research project mainly focuses on the public financial accountability in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning for South Sudan. According to the Public Service Regulations, the government has a duty and responsibility to deliver services to its entire people. In other words, the government exists primarily for the welfare of the people, by creating public institutions to render services delivery and developmental programmes for the communities. There are no government institutions that can function without the provision of finance resources (money). The management of the finances is one of the most important and critical tasks of the government, which requires public financial accountability from the political role-players and public officials, concerned with the use of public money (to be accountable). However the level of service delivery that citizens have to expect depends mostly on standardized public financial accountability of public money (revenue income) by the role players, and public officials in the institutions as integral part of public financial management. Any organization that manages and reports on its finances mitigates the risk of finances, builds good quality and openness into its financial and non financial analyses, monitors the sustainability of benefits and reflects sound financial accountability. Public financial accountability is a specific field that intended to as a tool use for the economy, efficient and effective administration of public money for render of service delivery to the citizens and the developmental programmes for the better live condition or general welfare of the communities. The study was motivated by the issue of public financial accountability in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning for both, during the interim period of six years and after independence in, 2011 for the government of South Sudan which has influenced socio- economic concern, as a result many communities in South Sudan have no access to basic services delivery. Research instruments which solicited quantitative and qualitative data were used to collect information from a sample of management officials and administrative staffs within the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning The research sought to identify the challenges faced and their causes and the ways of improving efficiency and effectiveness of public financial accountability in the ministry of finance and economic planning. The focus of public financial accountability is ranging from the stages of revenue collection, keeping/saving, treasury regulations, money transfer and budget expenditure, etc that can be achieved by transparency, financial reporting statements, control, and audit, as well as good ethical behavior for good performance in the public institutions, this is because maladministration practices of public finance have an impact in rendering of service delivery’s performance. This research focuses on the level of preparedness for accountability and financial accountability with regard to public financial management in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning. Particularly, it explored the laws, policies, procedures, rules and regulations governing implementation of public money, systems in place to oversee this process as well as the capacity of the role-players and public officials in this respective ministry. It further examined how finances have been used for the rendering of service delivery to the communities. In order to accomplish the objectives of this study, a literature study as well as empirical research was undertaken. For the empirical research, questionnaires as well as various types of interviews were used. For proportionate representation efficiency as well as cost effectiveness, the research used a sample of 26 respondents. These included 6 Financial Management Officers, 4 Directors General, 14 finance administrative Staffs, 1 Auditor-General, 1 Chair Person of Anti-Corruption Commission Exploratory statistics and methods were utilized to analyze the data collected so as to measure the reaction to the research questions and objectives under scrutiny. The research disclosed that the public financial accountability in the Ministry of Finance and Economic planning is a new approach that facilitates changes and growth by improving the ways of control public money. The study also found that the standardized laws, policies rules and regulations, and procedures for implementation for public financial accountability have been developed, but not implemented to achieve the stated goals. Also some other important documents are not yet developed. The findings attested to recommendations that, this research will help the policy makers to reformulate the policy; help the implementers or administrators the planners or the managers of the programmes to modify or adjust the programme; to help professionals or academician including those who may research in the area or field; it will help in filling gap in that particular academic dimension or field. The study made recommendations that, the public financial accountability must be improved in the ministry of finance and economic planning, through standardized policies and structures, procedures, transparent and accountable, financial reporting statements and control pertaining to public money. There is a great need for further research in this area of public financial management. This may not be restricted to the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning only but to all other state ministries where the utilization of public money has already been established.

Student Number : 9908223M - PhD thesis - School of Social Sciences - Faculty of Humanities / This thesis examines the status and role of parliamentary committees in democratic theory with a view to critically assessing the performance of one such committee, the South African version of the PAC, SCOPA. It advances a pluralist theory of popular sovereignty according to which there is no single institutional complex or site, which exclusively expresses the will of the people. The latter is the case in monist theories, which reduce democracy to its practice in a single site. Rousseau and Weber are critically examined in this connection. In the pluralist notion advanced in this thesis the popular will is expressed and realized in a plurality of institutional sites and modalities of exercise. On this perspective parliamentary committees perform a function vital to the constitution of popular sovereignty itself. They are indispensable to the formation by the people of an accurate perception by it of what the Executive is doing in its name. Their investigative work is thus constitutive of the formation of a democratic subject and will. Parliamentary committees are thus central to the satisfaction of the conditions of the deliberative dimension of democracy. On this definition, parliamentary committees must in addition themselves conform to the principles of deliberation in their own practice. This specifically deliberative conception of democracy is then further delineated by distinguishing it from the aggregation – majoritarian perspective and defending it against a variety of criticisms, including that of Chantal Mouffe. With this conceptual and normative framework in place, the British and American committee systems are examined in order to establish some reference points in terms of the institutional practice of parliamentary committees. The focus then shifts to the parliamentary committees of the South African Parliament. The constitutional and legal foundation for parliamentary committees (in the South African system) is examined with particular reference to SCOPA itself and the first five years of the new parliamentary committee system identified as a period during which several South African parliamentary committees, including SCOPA, effectively exercised their “oversight” function. Once the Government’s SDP entered the scene all things changed. This thesis examines the formation of the JIT, paying particular attention to the exclusion of the HSIU and the interventions of the Speaker, Hon Frene Ginwala. It identifies in close detail all the flaws in the SDP procurement process as well as the contradictions and lacunae in the final JIT Report itself. These are of such a magnitude as to render unreasonable any claim to the contrary and in endorsing the Report SCOPA thus clearly failed in its essential function. The notion of a threshold concept of reasonable adequacy is introduced as limiting the conditions under which committee decisions can legitimately be taken via majority voting. The argument is advanced that these were clearly not met in the case of the SCOPA decision under discussion. The implications of this “collapse” of SCOPA for South African democracy more broadly are then identified and discussed in terms of deliberative democratic theory.