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This paper aims to systematically analyze the weaknesses of public procurement in Malaysia as reported in the Auditor General’s Reports from 2011 until 2018. Specifically, the study examines the types of weaknesses, the modes of public procurement involved with the weaknesses, the procurement categories involved with the weaknesses and the key recommendations to mitigate the weaknesses in public procurement.

A document analysis was adopted in achieving the objective. The Auditor General’s reports and the reports of activities of federal ministries/departments published by the National Audit Department, Malaysia from the year 2011 until 2018 are the main documents used in this study. The data gathered were analyzed using frequency distribution and displayed with descriptive statistics and relevant graphs.

The findings of the study revealed that the top five reported are non-compliance to scope, specifications and terms of contracts; delayed completion/non-completion of project; poor documentation; low quality of products, service and work; and little or no prior planning. It is also found that direct negotiation mode was reported with the highest issues of public procurement, while the procurement mode with the least public procurement weaknesses is direct purchase. Moreover, it was found that work category is the highest with public procurement issues reported compared to supplies and services. The top recommendations given by the Auditor General were to improve internal control, to enhance monitoring, to establish planning in details, to improve assets management and to take appropriate actions toward contractors and procurement officers when needed.

This is among a few studies that attempted to systematically examine the main issues regarding the public procurement activities in Malaysia. This study highlighted pertinent aspects of the public procurement activities, which need close attention by the relevant authorities to ensure efficient and effective public procurement.

This paper aims to explore the contributions that public sector audit through reforms can make in dealing with the issues of occupational fraud in Ghana.

The issues surrounding the Ghana Audit Service (GAS) reports issued to parliament were reviewed using socio-legal methodology. The discussion as well as the theoretical contribution is informed by stakeholder theory.

The findings show matching of irregularities as reported by regular audit reports to schemes of occupational fraud and abuse as well as how the power to surcharge and disallow would serve as a deterrence mechanism in the fight against occupational fraud.

This paper concludes with discussions on specific requirements including the use of fraud investigators and modern forensic techniques in a collaborative effort with guidelines from the Supreme Audit Institution to minimise fraud.

This study, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, is the first to explore the role of GAS in minimising occupational fraud.

School infrastructure is one of critical factors that significantly contribute to the educational outcomes, and therefore, maintaining the high quality of school infrastructure becomes of critical importance. Due to the ageing of school assets over time in combination with budget constraint and rapid growth of student enrolment, many public schools are currently struggling to maintain the required standard for long term. However, to date, the goal of providing the best maintenance practices to public schools has not been achieved.

The present study focuses on studying the balance between the asset and maintenance management strategies and the funding model through conducting state-of-the-art literature review and qualitative analysis in the context of public schools in Australia and other developed countries around the world. Review of journal articles, different government reports and other available resources were used to collect and analyse the data in this study.

As part of this review, significant under investment in maintenance and asset renewals were identified as main challenges in asset management in public school facilities. Although different maintenance strategies were used in school infrastructure, adequate funding, adequate robust asset management plans (AMPs) and the involvement of private sectors have been identified as the key factors that govern the success in school infrastructure maintenance. It also shows that funding of approximately 2–3% of asset replacement value (ARV) on school infrastructure is required to maintain school facilities for long-term. Further, the procurement methods such as public private partnership including private finance initiatives (PFIs) have shown great improvements in maintenance process in school infrastructure.

The study provides a review of different AMPs and funding models in school infrastructure and their efficiencies and shortcoming in detail. Different states and countries use different maintenance models, and challenges associated with each model were also discussed. Further this study also provides some conclusive evidence for better maintenance performance for school buildings.

Ethiopia has enacted laws on transparency and disclosure of information in state-owned enterprises (SOEs). However, these laws are not strict enough, with the transparency and disclosure practices disappointing in the country. Thus, this study aims to investigate the legal framework governing transparency and disclosure in SOEs.

This study uses doctrinal, qualitative and comparative approaches. Domestic legal texts are appraised based on the organization for economic co-operation and development Guideline on Corporate Governance of State-owned Enterprises, the World Bank Toolkit on Corporate Governance of State-owned Enterprises and best national practices. This approach has been further corroborated by qualitative analysis of the basic principles of transparency and disclosure.

The finding reveals that the laws on transparency and disclosure do not comply with global practices and are inadequate to ensure transparency and discourse in SOEs. They fail to establish appropriate disclosure frameworks and practices at the SOE and state-ownership entity levels. They also indiscriminately subject enterprises to multiple auditing functions and conflicting responsibilities.

To the author’s knowledge, this study is the first legal literature on transparency and disclosure in Ethiopian SOEs. This study assists the state as owner in reforming the laws and uplifting SOEs from their current unpleasant condition. It can also become a reference for future research.

The political crisis related to two main factors internal to the public revenue system, namely financial markets and the commercialisation of the state, and three related external factors, pertaining to the pandemic, popular discontent and inequality. The emphasis on financial markets since the mid-1990s expanded the commercialisation of the state while neglecting public accountability and government oversight. The efforts to shore up public finances through the tax system is increasingly undermined by the global tax architecture, enabling financial secrecy and illicit financial flows.

The pandemic revealed the significance of women’s work, paid as well as unpaid care work. The pandemic also exposed the limitations of a domestic economy, based on export-oriented development, over-reliant on tourism and remittances from migrant workers. Combining with the on-going dengue epidemic, the pandemic highlighted the urgency of climate adaptation. Meanwhile, the popular discontent conveyed an accumulation of grievances linked with cultural discrimination, political misrepresentation as well as economic maldistribution. The participation of new middle-class segments in the protests foregrounded new tendencies significant for strengthening the labour movement as well as working-class parties in their demands for redistribution, reframing democracy as well as citizenship.

The Rajapaksa regime over the 2005–2022 period promoted a national-popular project based on a militarised Sinhala-Buddhist nationalism promoting a market-driven rentier economy. It illustrated a form of patrimonial capitalism undermining public accountability and the efficacy of the state bureaucracy. This popular-national project was dependent on strengthening ties with China while distancing relations with India and the Global North (USA and the EU). The ways in which the external relations were coordinated reinforced discrimination against Tamil and Muslim communities, while disregarding their demands for justice and reparations. The increasing integration of the economy with financial markets, driven by the Central Bank, amplified the commercialisation of the state, restraining public revenues and state oversight. Meanwhile, the militarisation of the state involved the commercialisation of the military, opaque military budgets and violent repression of protests. The Rajapaksa regime, which enabled a minority-privileged (leisure) class to culturally flourish in regulated safe spaces, also instigated multiple protests from below demanding democracy as well as justice.

The purpose of this study is to assess reasons behind experienced challenges by local government authorities (LGAs) in operating Women, Youth and People with Disabilities Fund (WYDF) in Tanzania. Specifically, it assesses the reasons behind failures to recover loan by LGAs and groups of Women, Youth and People with Disability (WYPWD).

The qualitative approach was recruited in this study involving Tunduru District Council as a case study. Data were collected through Interviews, Focus Group Discussion and Documentary Review. Interviews were administered to Community Development Officers (CDOs) while FGD to WYPWD groups. Reviewed documents include laws, regulations and publications on social development funds. Data were analyzed using content analysis approach and backed up by quotations during presentation.

Failures to recover loans from beneficiaries is attributed to weaknesses of both groups and LGAs. LGAs suffer from lack of capability to manage the fund, poor governance practices and misuse of public funds, and groups lack awareness of the fund's goals.

Due to experienced challenges, efforts by groups and LGAs to reclaim loan have been unsuccessful, which has prevented the fund from achieving its goals.

The central government should concentrate on ongoing LGAs capacity building so that they can successfully handle the fund, it is advised for improvement. Again, LGAs should establish an information system linked with groups to track their projects implementation. Once more, groups should be informed about the purpose of creating the fund and the advantages of the loan to them and to local economic development (LED). Furthermore, groups need entrepreneurial abilities to be able to participate in businesses that they can manage. Moreover, organizations should receive ongoing education so that they may repay the loan voluntarily.

Community awareness on the aims of the fund should be provided to impact LED.

Recommendations given can be applied by other developing countries struggling to uplift citizens economically through social development funds.

This paper aims to investigate the prevalence of corruption in Ghana to understand how and why it has turned public procurement into a mere money-making scheme instead of a means to provide needed public goods and services.

The study focuses on Ghana as a case study and mobilizes the monetization of politics lenses. Data are collected via interviews with key officials across the procurement sector (including the government, donors and civil society), documents, documentaries and news articles.

The findings suggest that the increasing costs of elections and political financing coupled with the costs of vote-buying, which has become informally institutionalized, intensify corruption practices and, consequently, turns public procurement into a mere source of cash for political ends. Political appointments and legalized loopholes facilitate this by helping to nullify the safeguard accounting and other control institutions are designed to provide. Likewise, enduring poverty and rising inequality “force” citizens into a vote-buying culture which distorts democratic premises that may drive out unscrupulous politicians; thus, perpetuating capture schemes. Civil society's efforts to remedy these have had little success, and corruption and inequality remain rife.

The main practical implication of the study lies in the need for a gradual demonetization of elections, and the consideration of the fundamental function of public procurement as a policy instrument embedded in economic, social, cultural and environmental plans. Additionally, given the connectedness of the various corruption issues raised, a comprehensive system-based approach in dealing with them would be more effective than a piecemeal approach targeting each issue/problem in isolation.

While extant literature has examined the issue of endemic corruption in developing countries using state capture, few have attempted to explain why it remains enduring, particularly in public procurement. This study, therefore, contributes to the literature on corruption and state capture theoretically and empirically by drawing on monetization of politics from political science to explain why corruption and state capture endure in certain contexts (with Ghana as an illustrative example) which reduce public procurement to a cash-milking scheme.

New public management (NPM) has transformed the public sector auditing context, although in quite different ways. Further, investigations into NPM’s impact on public sector auditors and audit institutions have been largely unconnected, with the exception of the critical examination of performance audits. We investigate the question of how public sector auditors’ roles and activities have changed as a result of NPM and later reforms.

We examine and synthesise public sector audit research examining reforms since the year 2000. The research presented considers changes to external and internal public sector audits as well as the development of public sector audit institutions – known as supreme audit institutions (SAIs).

Considerable changes have occurred. Many were influenced by NPM, but others have evolved from the eco-system of accounting, auditing and public sector management. External auditors have responded to an increase in demand for accountability. Additional management and governance techniques have been introduced from the private sector, such as internal auditing and audit committees. NPM has also led to conflicting trends, particularly when governments introduced competition to public sector auditing by contracting out but then chose to centralise to improve accountability. There is also greater international influence now through bodies like the International Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI) and similar regional bodies.

NPM reforms and the eco-system have impacted public sector auditing. Sustainability reporting is emerging as an area requiring more auditing attention; auditors also need to continue to develop better ways to communicate with citizens. Further, research into auditing in non-Western nations and emerging technologies is also required, especially where it provides learnings around more valuable audit practices. Empirical evidence is required of the strengths and weaknesses of SAIs’ structural variety.