Horizontal Accountability of the Executive to the Legislature in Africa: A Case Study of Kenya

This paper assesses the legislative, representative, financial control and oversight roles played by parliaments in Africa, with Kenya as the main case study in a context of accountability. The regional focus includes all the countries of East Africa; and Tanzania, Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda for a more detailed regional overview. The need to strengthen accountability is premised on the importance of having checks and mechanisms for parliaments to exercise their representative, legislative and oversight functions in a manner that ensures the prevention of abuse of power and subjects the Executive bodies to processes that open up their activities to public scrutiny with the possibility that in case they overstep their mandates they can be subjected to sanctions. The paper examines gaps in accountability and the factors that sustain those gaps. The main question addressed in this paper is: what are the determinants of the low performance of horizontal accountability mechanisms in Africa in general and in Kenya in particular? Our main hypothesis is that in Africa in general and in Kenya in particular, the low performance of horizontal accountability mechanisms results from deficits in legislative and Executive capacities, as well as a lack of incentives for both branches of power on the one hand, and the complex interplay between formal and informal institutions on the other. We examined a number of horizontal accountability mechanisms and assessed the extent to which these effectively work. Based on the African Parliamentary Index (API) (Parliamentary Centre 2011) and instruments and indicators of independence and accountability of independent agencies by De Vrieze F. and Ieseanu L. (2011), we focused on the following indicators: the existence of a budget review procedure; the time frame available for parliament to review the budget; room for public hearings on the budget; whether committees work together on the budget proposals of government; whether parliament can amend the proposed budget; whether it can send back the budget to the Executive; the level of details of expenditure in the budgets and whether the committees access information on defence and security services budgets; the existence of a Budget Act, a budget office and office of the Auditor General and the access to information these offices have on budgets and finances. Also considered is the nomination process of the Executive, its performance, assessment, reporting, transparency, system of appeals and consultations and coordination.