Investigating The Impact Of Public Sector Accounting Practise On Public Fund Management In Mutare Rural District Council

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of public sector accounting practice on public fund management in Mutare Rural District Council. Poor implementation of public sector accounting standards and policies that is non-compliance with IPSAS provision by accounting department at Mutare Rural District Council has resulted in failure to manage public funds as evidenced by lack of transparency and accountability, high volume of errors in financial statements, failure to provide basic goods and services to the people it services, led to the need of this research. Literature from various sources was reviewed to obtain different perceptions from different authors on the objectives of the research i.e. to investigate the extent to which MDRC is implementing public sector standards and policies, evaluating if government is performing it duties, of safeguarding that funds are managed properly and identifying problems faced in managing funds. The major contributions were that, implementation of IPSAS has the potential to significantly improve the quality of public sector financial reporting and that the accrual basis of accounting is appropriate for the public sector and this improves transparency and accountability on how public funds are been managed by the council. The researcher distributed 14 questionnaires arrived at using the census approach to employees of Mutare Rural District Council and from the responses found that non-compliance with IPSAS largely impacted on how public funds are managed at MRDC and 100% response from the respondents. Against the background of findings, the recommendation reached was the need for the executives/management of MRDC to embrace IPSAS accrual accounting basis as it positively affects the quality of financial reporting by public sector entities, bringing about improved educated evaluations regarding the resource allotment choices made by governments and other users of the information, consequently improving transparency and accountability on public fund management by public sector entities like MRDC