Bridging the Oversight Gap: Re-examining the Working Relationship Between the Controller and Auditor General and Parliament in Tanzania's Public Financial Accountability System

Abstract

Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) and legislative oversight committees jointly translate audit findings into government accountability, yet sub-Saharan African literature commonly attributes weak outcomes to under-resourcing alone. Using primary survey data (N = 80) from officials of Tanzania's Controller and Auditor General (CAG), Members of Parliament, government financial officers, academics, and civil society, this paper tests that diagnosis. Respondents rate CAG–Parliament collaboration as good to very good (77.5%) and CAG technical support to committees as adequate (93.75%), yet rate government implementation of CAG recommendations as only moderately effective (85%) and identify limited resources (45.12%) and constrained legal enforceability as the dominant structural constraints. Read against comparative evidence that Tanzania's Public Accounts Committee (PAC) is already a resource-efficient regional performer, the paper argues that the binding constraint is architectural rather than relational: the absence of an enforcement mechanism comparable to reforms recently adopted elsewhere in Africa.