Communicating the audit findings, PAC recommendations and treasury minute: A case study of outreach by the Office of the auditor general

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2014-02-04
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Chikale, Ellen
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The study was carried out for the purpose of exploring the role communication plays in the accountability process of Zambia. The study focused on the role communication plays in good governance and development of the country with particular emphasis on communicating the reports emanating from institutions in the accountability cycle namely; the Auditor General, Parliament and Executive (Government). Questionnaires, in-depth interviews, interview schedule, participant observation and scrutiny of documentary evidence in publications and the internet were used to collect data. The sample size of 100 respondents was selected. A purposive sample was also carried out on five (5) government ministries categorised as ‗high spending‘ ministries (Ministry of Finance, Education, Health, Defence and Agriculture); two (2) mainstream media houses, one electronic (ZNBC) and the other print (The Post Newspaper); three (3) accounting bodies namely ZICA, CIMA and the Zambian chapter of ACCA; and two (2) civil society organisations namely Transparency International Zambia and Civil Society for Poverty Reduction (CSPR). A systematic random sample was drawn on five (5) parastatal bodies from the sampling frame. The researcher sampled 5 parastatal bodies of every 8th element from the sample population of 41 parastatal bodies in Zambia. A random sample picked donors who contribute to what is known as the ‗basket funding‘ who support accountability and good governance. The quantitative data were coded and analysed with the aid of the Statistical Package for Social Sciences. The data gathered from the documentary evidence, interviews and participant observation were typed in form of text. The study found that communication plays a role in the accountability process in Zambia. The study revealed that seventy-two percent (72%) rated the degree to which communication would contribute to accountability in Zambia very high, followed by those who rated communication as high at 21 percent (21%). In essence this means that 93 percent of the respondents were to some extent in agreement to the fact that communication plays a role in the accountability process in Zambia. However, though communication plays a critical role in the accountability process in Zambia there is need to enhance the various communication strategies by the three institutions at the helm of the accountability process in Zambia, and many recommendations were derived from this study.
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Communicating the audit findings, PAC recommendations and treasury minute: A case study of outreach by the Office of the auditor general , Administrative Agencies-Zambia-Auditing.
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