Journal of Politics and Law

Vol. 2, No. 3

Accountability from the Perspective of Malaysian Governance
Ahmad Faiz Yaakob
Faculty of Administrative Science and Policy Studies
Universiti Teknologi MARA Terengganu, 23000 Dungun, Terengganu
Tel: 60-12-222-7659

E-mail: faiziiu@yahoo.com

Nadhrah A. Kadir
Faculty of Administrative Science and Policy Studies
Universiti Teknologi MARA Terengganu, 23000 Dungun, Terengganu
Tel: 60-12-250-4302

E-mail: nadhr292@tganu.uitm.edu.my

Kamaruzaman Jusoff (Corresponding author)
TropAIR, Faculty of Forestry, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang 43400, Selangor, Malaysia
Tel: 60-3-8946-7176

E-mail: kjusoff@yahoo.com

Abstract
Generally, accountability is often associated with a concept of answerability, responsibility, blameworthiness, liability etc. Commonly, the concept of accountability from the perspective of governance is the means to control the public administration in democratic countries. The classification of public accountability is normally seen in terms of external and internal mechanisms. Hence, this paper shall discuss both mechanisms with special reference to Malaysia. The discussion also focuses on the limitation of each mechanism which rendered some problems to the concept of accountability in Malaysia.
Keywords: Accountability, Governance, Public administration,
1. Introduction
Accountability is often associated with such concepts as answerability, responsibility, blameworthiness, liability and other terms associated with the expectation of accounting (Note 1). An individual who is accountable will be on his own commit to do or implement something if he feels that an occurrence or the result of the occurrence is important. It also involves effective reporting or program impact done to see the results and changes experienced from the aspect of knowledge and behaviour. In politics,