Determinants of Accountability in the Bureaucracy: The Case of Nepal

Accountability of the position holders is an instrument for ensuring quality governance within the bureaucratic structure throughout the world, and Nepal is not an exception. Time and again, the government of Nepal has practiced various plans, policies, and institutional mechanisms to make duty bearers accountable for their actions and performance. However, it is a general feeling that still these have not resulted as expected. Citizens often feel that bureaucrats are being irresponsive and unaccountable, and bureaucrats are openly criticized. In this background, we examine the determinants of accountability in Nepali Bureaucracy using the primary data collected from 213 bureaucrats form the central level organization, i.e., Ministry of Education employing widely accepted framework as proposed by Yamane [56]. The estimated results show that the bureaucrats seem to be accountable. Transparency, responsibility, and responsiveness also appear to be good; however, liability and controllability were not found to meet the expectations. This scenario reveals that there is a weak controllability mechanism. Similarly, there was a weak system for performance-based reward and punishment. It is interesting to note that accountability of bureaucrats differs by their demographic attributes.