Abstract:
Although endowed with rich oversight bodies, policies and Acts, the state of financial
management in South African government departments is illustrated in a number of
clean qualified audits. The media and the Auditor-General’s report are continuously
reporting on arbitrary financial practices, corruption, fruitless expenditure, tender
rigging and inability to spend allocated funds to mention a few of the problems
government experiences in its financial management. Financial management in the public service, if not addressed holistically, may hamper, rather than assist,
government departments with the speedy delivery of services.
The research study questioned the extent to which the legislative oversight bodies
successfully ensure public financial accountability and responsibility. The objective of
this study was not to evaluate the performance of institutions or any public financial
management offices, but rather to assess the capacity of the public financial
management systems themselves to support sound fiscal policy and financial
management.
The Constitution requires members of the Cabinet to provide Parliament with full and
regular reports concerning matters under their control. The Constitution further requires
the legislature to provide for effective mechanisms of oversight and to ensure that
executive organs of state in government are accountable to the legislatures. There are
instances where parliamentary committees’ reports and recommendations were
ignored by government departments. Such actions can be a threat to democracy and
good governance. Therefore Parliament and the legislature have a critical role to play
in overseeing effective performance by all organs of state. Results of the study indicated that the turnover rate of members of parliamentary
committees such as Standing Committee on Public Accounts remains a challenge and
this impact the effectiveness of these committees. The results also revealed that it is a
challenge to retain the directors-general in most government department. High turnover
rate of directors general is a challenge as directors-general are accounting officers of
Government departments. High turnover rate of directors-general could bring a
perception that there is a lack of accountability and could be seen as threat to the
democracy.
