Department Of Public Administration And Health Services Management

ABSTRACT Across the globe, there has been a recurrent demand for accountability by citizens and this has spearheaded the waves of public sector reforms conducted by various governments to meet these increasing demand. This demand for vertical accountability will ensure efficiency and effectiveness, and transparency in the usage of the citizen's resource. Additionally, it builds a relationship of trust, integrity as well as legitimize the activities of public administrators at the selected Ministries. The study sought to ascertain the facilitators, limitations, and benefits to effective vertical accountability. A qualitative research approach and a case study research design was adopted. The study sampled twenty directors from the selected Ministries and ten ordinary citizens for an in-depth interview using a qualitative research design. From empirical evidence, the study found that right to information, financial disclosure of income, assets, and interest, meritbased recruitment, proper record-based management, performance-based evaluation, training, and development as well as ethical leadership are the facilitators of effective vertical accountability in the selected Ministries. However, there are some factors that have limited the effectiveness of vertical accountability at the selected Ministries such as corruption, nepotism, patronage and clientelism, lack of resource availability, absence of political will and commitment, conflict of interest, and in addition weak compliant mechanisms. Based on the findings of the study, it is recommended that there should be effective right to information, political commitment and resourced anti-corruption agencies to strengthen vertical accountability at the selected MDAs. Also, government should provide the requisite resource needed to enhance the performance as well as promote professionalism of recruitment and appointment at the selected ministries.