Subsequent to Tokyo Conference a declaration was signed on July 8, 2012. The donors of the Conference agreed to provide a very large amount of civilian aid to Afghanistan ($16 billion over four years, or $4 billion per year on average), and to improve the effectiveness of aid over time by putting more (50 percent) of total aid through Afghan budget channels and aligning most (80 percent) with Afghanistan’s priorities as embodied in the National Priority Programs. The Afghan government committed to taking a number of actions and achieving associated outcomes/results, primarily in governance and political spheres. The outcome of the Tokyo meeting exceeded expectations in terms of funding indicated by donors and conditions agreed to by the Afghan government.
Having been provided with enormous amount, government’s efforts seem infinitesimal if not none. As an ordinary citizen everybody has the right to information and claims equal rights to hold his/her elected representative accountable on these grounds. The blinding illiteracy has left people ignorant of their fundamental rights and eased public officials at making them fools. How many welfare tasks are undertaken by government out of aforementioned amount? How many hospitals, educational institutes and vocational training centers are built? Has the government tried to meet the agreed terms and conditions? The absence of proper control mechanism, check and balance and accountability, has made governmental institutes to operate at will. To check such ill-conducts institutions of high moral and prestige should be created that could exercise strict accountability of public officials.
Accountability refers to the obligation of an individual to report formally to his superior for the proper discharge of his responsibility. It is the answerability of a subordinate to render an account of his activities to his superior. The person who accepts responsibility is accountable for the performance of the assigned duties.
To be accountable is to be answerable for one's conduct in respect to obligation fulfilled or unfulfilled. Accountability is the obligation of an individual to keep his superior informed of his use of authority and accomplishment of assigned tasks. Accountability grows out of responsibility and goes hand in hand with it. A person who is responsible for results must recognize that he will be judged by the quality of his performance. Just as responsibility is a derivative of authority, accountability is a derivative of responsibility. Responsibility is the obligation to perform assigned tasks, accountability is the reporting of performance.
Accountability makes responsibility meaningful and completes the process of delegation. Responsibility is stated in terms of work to be done, while accountability is stated in terms of performance. Authority is delegated, responsibility is assumed and accountability is imposed. Authority flows downward while accountability for performance flows upward. Responsibility arises from authority while accountability is derived from responsibility. Authority means some autonomy while accountability is meant to regulate autonomy. Authority is the medium for creating responsibility while accountability is a means of fulfilling responsibility.
In presidential systems accountability in administrative rulemaking is achieved through different practices and institutional arrangements. Bureaucratic accountability can be conceived of as a classic principal-agent problem. There is nothing very new about thinking of a legislature as a principal that uses the state bureaucracy as an agent. As with all agents, the bureaucracy might not do its principal's bidding and might neglect to carry out statutes as lawmakers intended. The legislative principal, therefore, uses different techniques to monitor and control bureaucrats. This is not only a question of what legislatures typically do but what they are constitutionally obliged to do. A legislature that controls execution too carefully might violate separation of powers principles, but one that does not control enough might very well be charged with an unconstitutional abdication of power because of the ease with which execution can become lawmaking.
In presidential systems, the lawmaking principal -the president goes on to form the government - directly controls state administration. In what is known as non-party government, a relatively simple chain of command extends from voters to civil servants. The people elect representatives to sit in parliament. The president forms the government, which in turn commands the state bureaucracy. Similarly he controls both parliament and the government and therefore even though separation of powers theory would have parliaments legislate and governments execute, in practice the two functions tend to blur. Laws are passed at the discretion of president and also keep an eye on implementation through their relationship with the executive and, vice versa, the government is not only responsible for administering the law but also proposes legislation and pushes it through parliament.
Government cabinets, not parliaments, are the key players in the bureaucratic control game because they are ideally located, by virtue of their central position in both legislative politics and administration, to ensure that the same political agenda behind lawmaking will also guide implementation. The civil servants who staff a ministry answer, through a hierarchical chain of command, to the minister, cabinet and the president. When it comes time to draft rules, therefore, bureaucrats are supervised by the same politicians who crafted the enabling statute. Accountability is achieved largely through the informal politics of government cabinet guidance, monitoring, and punishment.
Parliaments and courts take a backseat to governments in assuring accountability in presidential systems. Parliaments wield a number of institutional tools to keep the administration in check. Yet, albeit with significant national variations, these tools are weak and parliaments do not make heavy use of them. Questions to members of government are a feeble means of directing administration. The power to veto or amend executive rules issued pursuant to statutory provisions is seldom used because it is a drastic measure only appropriate for acts that clearly demonstrate disrespect for legislative mandates. Finally, the power to approve the budget, although a highly persuasive institutional stick, is rarely used in practice; as in most other policy areas, the government is charged with proposing the budget.
Courts can also play a secondary role in making sure bureaucracies do lawmakers' bidding. When they review administrative rules, they guarantee that civil servants stick to the statutory terms they have been charged with implementing. They see their role as protecting parliament's lawmaking powers and ensuring that bureaucrats respect statutory guidelines. But Afghanistan’ courts are hapless, without being satisfied that bureaucrats have kept within those limits they approve governments misappropriations. When, as is generally the case, guidelines are vague and must be inferred from the statute's broader objectives as well as models of rational administrative action, courts are reluctant to intervene.
Working in conformation with each other the governmental institutions can keep the conduct of public officials in checks to know either they are functioning in accordance to rule of business prescribed by constitution or detracted. Being negligent to the dire need of a mechanism of answerability the government might not earn prosperity for the country in the long term.