Corruption and Public Financial Management

Corruption and Public Financial Management

By Lalit Kumar.

The Government ensures the administration over citizens as per the rules laid by legislature and provides the public services, security through armed forces, and justice through judiciary services. How the Executive System works in Government of India?

The executive system ensures the control over corruption in providing goods and services through Government Organizations. It ensures availability of goods and services for fulfillment of basic needs of the public or citizens. It regulates all sectors of the economy and also ensures control over the State Governments.

Each State Government further functions to ensure proper governance in providing goods and rendering public services:

The ultimate goal of political and administrative functionaries in Centre as well as in States; is to ensure quality service delivery to the citizens. The Constitution also directs to fulfill the needs of citizens through political and administrative setup. The administrative setup includes the following:

The Chief Secretary is the head of administration and there are Additional Chief Secretaries work under him for one or multiple Government departments. In most of the States, there is Human Resource Management System (HRMS) working to establish these functions more effectively.

Each field office works with commitment towards achievement of a common goal provided by their administrative secretaries:

Each field office works towards individual excellence and with trust over each other to get the benefit of collective functions. The team-spirit and motivation works in groups and the instructions are passed by Commissioners and Deputy Commissioners by organizing meetings, workshops, and giving written directions through orders.

Role of Accounts Administrator:

The role of Accounts Administrator has become more challenging due to increase in financial irregularities and involvement of external bodies in ensuring good governance through using information technology. The corruption is usually originated by involving the employees of an organization. Earlier it was considered that employees provided higher salary packages don't make corruption but the scams through involving banking officers in case of PNB scam and Rotomac scam had proved it wrong. The misuse of public funds, bribery, and means of abusing office; are most prominent issues in financial administration for each state government in India. The Administrative Training Institute (ATI) i.e. Haryana Institute of Public Administration (HIPA) and the Chief Secretary Office have been putting full efforts to sort out the problems relating to corruption in public offices. The corruption in itself contains either the ways to divert public resources for private or personal uses or abusing of authorities for personal interests.

The Public Financial Management (PFM)

It explains the managerial aspects relating to acquisition of public resources, safeguarding pubic resources, and effective & efficient utilization of public resources. It comprises the systems of revenue collection, assets and debt management, budget preparation and execution, preparing and maintaining accounts, internal and external control for effective compliance of budget and audit mechanisms. In case, the PFM is strongly enforced, there will be very little scope of corruption. In other words, it is relaxation in PFM that generate the conditions for happening of corruption.

Wherever the financial rules have not been defined and enforced; the officers take decisions with their discretion and such discretion gives scope for corruption. Wherever the control mechanisms are absent or unavailable, the utilization of resources may lead to corruption by increasing the probability of individuals to be engaged in corruption practices like theft, misuse of resources, and abusing powers for personal interests. Wherever the executives are incompetent or less qualified as per the requirement; others including employees, citizens, and other stakeholders become empowered to get benefit from the in-competencies of the executives. If there is more potential for happening of corruption, then definitely there is weak public financial management system.

The only key solution to corruption in public organizations is to develop effective PFM systems, refine PFM systems, and strengthening transparency, accountability, and enforcement. 

Understanding Group Dynamics for Success:

The executives are trusted to perform their duties by taking work from others. The principle of success in each department is, “You can accomplish anything in life provided you don’t mind who gets the credit”. The civil servants are trained in training institutes to share their abilities to the subordinates and getting work in best ways. They are trained to make a difference and leave their footprints in the sand for others to follow.

There are seven Cs to get success in each government office i.e. Commitment towards Goals, Competence to achieve goals, Character to stay work hard in office, Compassion to deliver continuous effective results, Credibility to get the work done from others, Clarity on what to do and what not to do, and Courage to deliver 100% in each function.

*Copyright © 2018 Dr. Lalit Kumar. All rights reserved. 

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