PUBLIC ACCOUNTS COMMITTEE RELATIONSHIP WITH CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANISATIONS MEDIA AND GENERAL PUBLIC: KEY TO EFFECTIVE ACCOUNTABILITY Presented by Hon. V. M. Malebo Chairperson P A C Lesotho On the 15th November, 2011

Public Accountability Public Accountability involves answerability and enforcement. Answerability refers to the obligation of the government, its ministries, departments, agencies and public officials to provide information about their decisions and actions and to justify them to the public and those institutions of accountability tasked with providing oversight. Enforcement suggests that the public or the institution responsible for accountability can sanction the offending party or remedy the contravening behavior. Under a parliamentary democracy, the three arms of government, the Executive, Parliament and the Judiciary, are supposed to provide the necessary checks and balances on each other as a form of horizontal accountability. The citizens, mass media and civil society seek to enforce standards of good performance on officials as a form of vertical accountability.

Parliamentary Oversight Political analysts have pointed out that Parliament has not been particularly effective in discharging its oversight responsibility over the Executive, in spite of the powers granted to parliamentary committees to conduct investigations and enquiries into the activities and administration of ministries and departments. It has been noted that this lack of effectiveness is due partly to the lack of technical expertise and resources of members of Parliament to scrutinize technical matters presented to them by the Executive, whereas the latter is well equipped with experts, civil servants and consultants. In light of the foregoing discussion about the limited effectiveness of parliamentary oversight in many countries, the role of independent of oversight state institutions, the media and civil society in ensuring accountability of the executive and other public officials becomes very critical.

Parliamentary Accountability Parliamentary accountability involves representatives holding government to account for its actions/inactions and intentions. Parliamentary accountability involves the granting of funds to the government in the form of Appropriation Act and then ensuring that those funds have been used efficiently and effectively and for authorized purposes.

The role of Public Accounts Committee (Lesotho Experience) The role of PAC is to scrutinize actions by the executive and compel it to operate within permissible limits. Upon receipt of the Auditor General’s report, the briefing meeting is held between AG’s office and PAC to give clarity where needed to PAC. Thereafter PAC sessions commence; this is where the Chief Accounting Officers of ministries, departments and agencies are asked to answer questions on the topic of the report.

Due to the fact that there are delays (backlog) in reporting, PAC does not only concentrate on Auditor Generals’ report but they even asked Chief Accounting Officers to report current losses in their ministries and PAC take appropriate action. PAC also makes their own investigations because they can see what problems exist in their own areas (constituencies). When PAC’s sessions are completed, PAC writes a report to parliament whereby they recommend on the action to be taken to rectify the weaknesses. PAC can take scrutiny one stage further not simply questioning whether government is accounting for citizens money and providing value for money but whether its spending limited resources on the right things.

The Role of Media, Civil Society and General Public A strong and independent media and active civil society is crucial in ensuring citizens are presented and that their government is held to account. Civil Society primary role is to advocate for good government and respect for human rights. Civil Society and Media play a part in communicating between parliament and government and wider society. Civil Society groups are at the grassroots of society and understand what is happening in local communities and see at first hand the impact of government policies. They can be involved in audit and scrutiny by helping build citizen understanding and interest in accountability issues, raising issues of public concerns for PAC to investigate, helping monitor and follow up on recommendations, following up and reporting where the government has been slow to make improvements and ensuring that important issues remain in the public eye – especially if progress has not been made.

The relationship between PAC, Civil Society Groups, Media and citizens The relationship is generally good as evidenced by the fact that they undertake some activities together. For instance, there had been times when Civil Society Groups get experts to provide training to PAC members on matters concerning accountability. This is very important because one would find that some members of PAC are not conversant with the accountability chain. In other cases Civil Society groups had invited members of PAC to jointly speak on national radio and television. People benefit a lot from these dialogues because they ask questions and get valuable knowledge. The fact that there is a mutual trust between these parties, Civil Society Groups in many occasions had called attention of PAC to illegal or inappropriate actions within the public sector.

A perception among key stakeholders is that PAC is starting to become more effective in accountability process. Factors which might have contributed to this are composition of PAC which is made up of members from both ruling party and opposition parties, PAC chairman being the member of opposition, members of the PAC to certain extends understands their role in accountability process and close cooperation between media, civil society and citizens.

Despite the fact that there is close cooperation between PAC, Civil Society groups, media, and citizens challenges persist in certain critical areas. Clear communication structures are not in place as to how, when and with whom to communicate, follow up on recommendations made by PAC is not properly done, access to information on government (financial) activity and performance by citizen still a problem and insufficient funding for PAC activities.

Strengthening the PAC relationship with civil society groups, media and citizens is on-going process but there have been some clear achievements. For instance public awareness and debate has been stimulated by media, people come voluntarily to PAC to report matters of concerns, civil society groups have trained citizens in accountability matters, they have also provided funding for training of members of PAC, jointly discuss issues of national importance on national radio and television. It has become evident that not only one institution can hold executives to account but wider set of actors must be considered such as judiciary, ombudsmen, anti corruption agencies, business groups, international organisations etc.

Conclusion The relationship between PAC, Civil Society, media and public can help to improve governance process by focusing on how values are established so as to ensure efficient and effective control and management of public sector organization. This can mainly be supported by a strong political will. Civil Society should be used to complement government activities rather than being seen as some kind of irritant.