Public Administration

8

Accountability and Control

Administrative responsibility can be defined as the liability of the officials to give a satisfactory account of the exercise of the powers or discretion vested in them to someone to whom it is due. Failing to provide the same leads to some kind of punishment. According to L. D. White, ‘Administrative responsibility consists of the sum total of the constitutional, statutory, administrative and judicial rules and precedents and the established practices by means of which public officials may be held accountable for their official action.’ Pfiffner makes a distinction between ‘responsibility’ and ‘accountability’. He writes that accountability refers to the formal and specific location of responsibility while responsibility ...