The principles of accountability and transparency serve as important building
blocks for a democracy that wants to enhance sound and efficient governance.
The South African government experiences increased allegations of insufficient
public accountability, corruption and maladministration against them and
therefore it is essential to pay in-depth attention to the role of public transparency
in the enhancement of sound democratic governance.
Transparency is not merely an aim in itself, but serves as a means to reach the
planned government objectives and to make effective and efficient participation
of all role-players possible. Open and transparent governance refer to, amongst
other, access to information, participation in public decision-making and the
freedom of the media. An excellent relationship of trust between the public
sector and the public should continuously be developed and maintained. This
makes it essential to keep the public well-informed about the management of
national and regional public institutions, how well they perform, the money spent
by them to reach the approved public objectives and how control is exercised to
ensure successful implementation of the approved government programmes.
Correct and sufficient information must be available to the citizens to enable them
to determine the quality of public goods- and service delivery and to therefore
contribute to improved service delivery by the public sector. A public institution
can be viewed as transparent when it can deliver information to various roleplayers
and/or stakeholders, as prescribed by different Acts, for example the
Promotion of Access to Information Act, 2000 (Act 2 of 2000). By being
transparent, a public institution confirms its respect towards the countryâs Acts;
justifies its mere existence; confirms its willingness to follow the strategies of the
government-of-the-day and to strive towards the improvement of the public
welfare. Public accountability in a democratic government means that the political officebearers
and public officials must account to the taxpayers for the collection and
spending of public money. Public accountability therefore forms a central theme
in the theory and practice of public transparency and the basis for sound public
administration, as the taxpayer has a right to know how public money has been
collected and spent.
The South African government must implement well-planned programmes and
projects to fight corruption in their strive towards the establishment of
transparent, corruption-free and responsible governance. It is essential that the
government-of-the-day itself fight corruption by adhering to a policy of zero
tolerance towards corrupt officials, irrespective of who the individual is, and to
involve the media as a partner that can publish information about corrupt
practices in order for the public to be well-informed.
Ethics and transparency are closely related. Ethical behaviour can lead to
greater transparency in the activities of public officials. In a democratic
government there is no place for keeping secrets and for confidentiality when it
comes to activities which are financed with public money. Not always serving the
publicâs interest, but rather its own, is unfortunately part of human nature. It is
therefore essential to develop and implement control mechanisms, for example
auditing and reporting techniques, which will contribute to public officials adhering
to the requirements of transparency and openness. It is the duty and
responsibility of all public institutions (political and administrative) to continuously
exercise their actions in a transparent and open manner.
Transparency is the so-called oxygen of politics and the public life. In the
Republic of South Africa it is important to ensure transparent governance to
establish equal and effective goods- and service delivery to the citizens; to
establish excellent accountability and the involvement of citizens in public
decision-making; to improve a legitimate government-of-the-day; to improve the policy formulation and implementation processes; to increase international
investments and lastly to decrease the rate of corruption in the country.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:ufs/oai:etd.uovs.ac.za:etd-09252007-133514 |
| Date | 25 September 2007 |
| Creators | Pretorius, Marlize Carine |
| Contributors | Prof PF van Straaten, Prof HJ Kroukamp |
| Publisher | University of the Free State |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | en-uk |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.uovs.ac.za//theses/available/etd-09252007-133514/restricted/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University Free State or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
Page generated in 0.0026 seconds