Accountability and Control in Government Accounting Systems

Accountability refers to the quality of being responsible and answerable to one's conduct, undertaking, and actions. It is essential for the government officials to uphold full accountability while handling government's financial and economic matters. Control, on the other hand, means ensuring that the various functions or agents of the government accounting systems are aligned towards the achievement of the set corporate goals and objectives.

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Due to the heavy load of activities on government functions, care should be critically considered to ensure proper management of the scarce resources. Apart from keeping law and order, and assuring citizens peace and stability, the government is also involved in the provision of social amenities. All these activities, responsibilities and functions require finances to run. The government has to design the appropriate means of generating revenues to run these functions to achieve the set goals and objectives (Jayasinghe, Kelum, et al.64).

In the country's chain of production, finance is a primary source.

Proper management of government finances is an essential function towards the achievement of the goals and objectives. Adequate handling of funds by the government accounting officers is a significant concern in the various accounting systems to create harmony and social welfare in the society.

The Government Accountability is the primary concern executed by the Governmental Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) of the United States of America in line with the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB). The agenda for the government accounting research on accountability is set for more consideration in the future public financial sector.

The public financial sector is exceptionally heterogeneous thereby requiring equally complex financial control measures. Double entry system of accounting has been adopted by the government to ensure precise arithmetic accuracy.

Due to the heterogeneous nature of the government financial sector, the regulations guiding the financial management activities in the public sector is contained in the constitutional laws of the United States of America. The following are some of the statutory financial regulations:

The National Bank Act of 1863 provides the fundamental framework for the banking system and national bank charter for the United States of America.

The Federal Reserve Act, established in 1914.

The United States Banking Act of 1933 which defines the functions of investment banks from the commercial banks and created the country's federal deposit insurance.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Act brought together the previous FDIC legislation into a single act and mandated the FDIC to be the acting receiver for the failed banks.

The Bank Holding Company Act ratified in 1956 commands the approval of the Federal Reserve for a company to obtain a bank and requires BHCs to receive the support of the Federal Reserve to get an interest in additional banks.

These public sector accounting regulatory frameworks are put in action and provide significant benefits in the control and accountability in the federal financial industry. The finance ministry is responsible for rendering accounts and setting power over all financial transactions. The bureau supervises the activities of all the other reports of the different ministries and departments in the entire United States of America (Jayasinghe, Kelum, et al. 139). The ministry prepares general annual state financial statement of accounts. Moreover, the finance ministry is also charged with the statutory responsibility as a watchdog and auditor to the state accounts.

Works cited

Fiscal, Service. Financial Report of the United States Government 2009. Place of publication not identified: Fiscal Service, 2010. Print.

Jayasinghe, Kelum, Nirmala Nath, and Radiah Othman. The Public Sector Accounting, Accountability and Auditing in Emerging Economies. , 2015. Internet resource.