QUESTION
Critically analyze any two of these essays on public administration and examine their relevance to Uganda
Procedure
Elaborate a point from the author and relate it to the public administration of Uganda and indicate whether it’s useful /relevant or not. Either agree with the point or not and state the gaps in relation to Uganda. Bring up the gaps from the author’s argument in relation to Uganda’s public administration
Relevance
How is the authors’ article relevant to the public administration of Uganda
Try to define the key terms during the analysis
Financial Management
The term financial management consists of two terms mainly financial and management
However Daniel R. (2003), defines management specifically as the art, or science, of achieving goals through people. Since managers also supervise, management can be interpreted to mean literally “looking over”, making sure people do what they are supposed to do. Managers are, therefore, expected to ensure greater productivity or, using the current jargon, ‘continuous improvement.
While combining financial and management, MelekEker, (2007) defines financial management as the efficient and effective management of money (funds) in such a manner as to accomplish the objectives of the organization. It is the specialized function directly associated with the top management.
According to (Padachi, 2006) Financial Management is concerned with planning, directing, monitoring, organizing and controlling monetary resources of an organization.
According to the essay by David Mitchell and Kurt Thurmaier,(2012), Financial management encompasses the implementation and husbandry of efficient and effective spending during the implementation of the budget. The subfield of public and nonprofit accounting (and financial reporting) is included in financial management,
In Uganda Despite the enactment of a number of public finance management reforms since the 1990s, misappropriation of public funds in Uganda remains a challenge. On one hand, the reforms aim to create a sound public finance management system that supports aggregate control, prioritization, accountability and efficiency in the management of public resources and the delivery of services critical to Uganda’s development goals (Ministry of Finance Planning and Economic Development, 2013), These include the enactment of the Budget Act, 2001; the 2003 Public Finance and Accountability Act1 (PFAA), which repealed the Public Finance Act of 1964; the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets (PPDA) Act, 2003; the Public Finance and Accountability Regulations, (PFAR), 2003; and the Treasury Accounting Instructions (TAI), 2004; and the implementation of the Integrated Financial Management System (IFMS) among others. On the other hand, the prevalence of misappropriation of public funds by public servants, delays in fund disbursement, low absorption capacity by some departments, and idle, dormant bank accounts continue to have a negative impact on the delivery of public services. For example, scandals in the Office of the Prime Minister, where UGX 60 billion was stolen and UGX 340 billion was lost to ghost pensioners in the Ministry of Public Services, amounted to the equivalent of the total budget of the Ministry of Agriculture Animal Industry and Fisheries in 2013/14 and approximately 3 % of Uganda’s total annual budget.
However though the authors states that financial management has to be effective Uganda’s financial management systems has been marred by inefficiencies therefore though the authors assume efficiency in financial management Uganda system is an opposite one.
Public budgeting
According to public finance act, 2015, budgeting means the process by which government sets levels to efficiently collect revenues and allocate the spending of resources among all sectors to meet national objectives.
While in the article, David Mitchell and Kurt Thurmaier, (2012), public budgeting is the decision making process that allocates scarce resources of public agencies to fund public services at the local, state and national levels.
However in Uganda management of its public budget has been marred by corruption , The country scores 65 out of 100 in the 2012 Open Budget Index, a significant improvement from 2010, when it scored 55. This score indicates that the government provides substantial information to the public on budget processes, but there is still room for improvement. The government can still do more to enhance budget transparency, by, for example, increasing the comprehensiveness of the different reports produced during the budget process (e.g. Executive’s budget proposal; in-year reports; audit reports
According to the Budget Survey 2012, budget oversight provided by the Auditor General is fairly strong, but it could be further strengthened if the institution received the appropriate level of resources for its activities and to hire additional skilled and qualified staff for sector-level audits (International Budget Partnership, 2013).
Corruption in Uganda affects a wide range of sectors and institutions. According to citizens surveyed under the 2011 East Africa Bribery Index, experience with corruption in encounters with public officials is very high. For instance, nearly 49% of citizens who interacted with police reported having to pay bribes. The percentage is also high for bribe payments in tax services (40.6%), registry and licensing services (34%), city and local councils (29.6), and the judiciary (24.8%), (Transparency International Kenya, et al., 2012).
However though the authors of Mitchell and Kurt Thurmaier, (2012), in the article state that public budgeting is the decision making process that allocates scarce resources of public agencies to fund public services at the local, state and national levels, for Uganda the public budget has not been fully realized by the common since most of the government projects have not been meant due to corruption which has hindered efficient allocation of scarce of resoiurces to public agencies.
According to David Mitchell and Kurt Thurmaier,( 2012) in the article they states that, As the Cold War Era dawned in the 1950s, the military bureaucracy was reoriented toward major weapons systems with complicated development timelines, complex delivery systems, and the need for multiyear budgeting and planning to keep ahead in the burgeoning arms race.
Bureaucracy systems have been also been practiced in Uganda’s public administration systems since most of the Uganda administrative systems were centralized by the government.
Though according to max weber bureaucracy has numerous benefits this theory also has got numerous weaknesses gaps these were specifically stated by, Robert Merton (1952) who states that Weber’s bureaucracy by observing that the bureaucratic features, which Weber believes in enhancing rationality and efficiency, might actually be associated with irrationality and inefficiency. Merton concludes that bureaucracy contains the seeds of its own destruction. This part discusses the bureaucratic model of Max Weber from a critical point of view. It focuses on four main irrational limitations that bureaucracy has in terms of its ideal type, its negligence of informal organization, and its dehumanization as well as its tense relationship with democracy. In particular, Weber’s bureaucracy does not consider the important role of the informal relationships that exist in any human organizations. In addition, many in public administration argue that the reality of bureaucratic discretion is a threat to democratic norms and practices that govern and rule the American community.
Public administration
According to David Mitchell and Kurt Thurmaier, (2012), The last decade of general public administration scholarship has been energized with studies that extend the inter-organizational conception of public service delivery to programmatic relationships between government agencies and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and public-private partnerships in public service networks.
The origins of the current public administration in Uganda can be explained by the history of public administration and politics in Uganda, which date back to the colonial times. At independence, the newly independent nation states including Uganda inherited centralized systems of governance from their former colonizers. However with the Structural Adjustment programs that set in, a new wave of events unfolded. Bringing services closer to the people became the agitation of many nations not only in the West, but in the developing Countries as well. Scholars have argued that, uganda decentralized its public administration structures, under the 1997 Local Governments Act, has led to more responsive, efficient and accountable local governance in Uganda. The concept of accountability entails a relationship between two parties in which one party (the accounter) has a duty to explain and to justify his or her actions to the other (accountee), the accountee can ask questions and pass verdict, and the accounter can be sanctioned. This definition focuses on the important aspects of accountability, as it highlights the significance of a relation between accounter and the accountee, stressing the role obligation and sanctions in case of deviation. Uganda, like many other developing countries embarked on decentralisation to ensure that there is efficiency in public administration and for a democratic, participatory, decentralized local government system that could sustain development and deliver services efficiently and effectively to the people (MOLG, 2012). Besides transfer of power from centre to districts, political control at local level, enhancing local economic development and improving local capacity in management of resources, decentralization policy in Uganda envisioned improvement in accountability and responsibility at the local level (MoLG, 2012).
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