TITLE:
Determinants of Accountability in the Bureaucracy: The Case of Nepal
AUTHORS:
Ramesh C. Paudel, Anil Kumar Gupta
KEYWORDS:
Accountability, Transparency, Bureaucracy
JOURNAL NAME:
Modern Economy,
Vol.10 No.9,
September
23,
2019
ABSTRACT: Accountability of the position holders is an
instrument for ensuring quality governance within the bureaucratic structure
throughout the world, and Nepal is not an exception. Time and again, the
government of Nepal has practiced various plans, policies, and institutional
mechanisms to make duty bearers accountable for their actions and performance.
However, it is a general feeling that still these have not resulted as
expected. Citizens often feel that bureaucrats are being irresponsive and
unaccountable, and bureaucrats are openly criticized. In this background, we
examine the determinants of accountability in Nepali Bureaucracy using the primary
data collected from 213 bureaucrats form the central level organization, i.e., Ministry of Education employing
widely accepted framework as proposed by Yamane [56]. The estimated results
show that the bureaucrats seem to be accountable. Transparency, responsibility,
and responsiveness also appear to be good; however, liability and
controllability were not found to meet the expectations. This scenario reveals
that there is a weak controllability mechanism. Similarly, there was a weak
system for performance-based reward and punishment. It is interesting to note
that accountability of bureaucrats differs by their demographic attributes.