Who is More Accountable? Federal or State Malaysian Statutory Bodies
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.52962/ipjaf.2019.3.2.73Keywords:
Accountability, transparency, stakeholders’ participation, evaluation, complaint and response, federal statutory bodies, state statutory bodiesAbstract
The World Bank on Governance Indicators in the aspect of ‘Voice and Accountability’ reported accountability for Malaysia had declined to 34% in 2017 from 37% in 2013. Data from the International Country Risk Guide showed a decrease in accountability since 2011 from 4.46 to 4 points out of 6 points in the year 2012. Public sector organisations like statutory bodies might also face issues of accountability. This study aims to evaluate and compare the accountability outcomes of federal and state statutory bodies through a questionnaire. The measurement for accountability based on four dimensions, namely transparency, evaluation, stakeholders' participation and complaint and response. Based on 194 responses received from top management of Malaysian statutory bodies, the overall accountability outcome has shown an above-average score of 5.97 for both federal and state statutory bodies. This shows that Malaysian statutory bodies have delivered a high level of accountability. The test for the difference between the means scores of independent T-tests also shows that there is no significant difference between the accountability level of federal and state statutory bodies. Despite the different level of obligation and legislation, both types of statutory bodies seem to deliver an equally high level of accountability outcomes.
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