Improved Accountability and Transparency for Public Parastatals in Nigeria through Enhanced Legislative Oversight

Abstract

This paper utilizes a qualitative approach to investigate how legislative oversight contributes to improving accountability and transparency in Nigeria’s public parastatals. Legislative oversight is crucial for democratic governance, as it monitors the actions of the executive branch and ensures responsible management of public resources in Nigeria. The paper adopted the principal-agent theory to provide more empirical clarification of its content and presentation. Data was obtained for the study from secondary sources. Further, despite its constitutional mandate of the legislature under Section 88 of the 1999 constitution, the paper explains that the efficacy of legislative oversight has been in consistent due to challenges such as executive interference, corruption, partisan politics, weak institutional frameworks, autonomy, financial independence, and limited technical capacity. Ultimately, the findings emphasize the necessity for reforms to strengthen the legislative oversight function, enabling it to effectively act as check on executive power with the following recommendations: Complete Financial Autonomy for the legislature from the executive, Resistance to executive interference in the appointment of the leadership of the legislature, complete independence for the judiciary and INEC, among others.