“This paper assesses the legislative, representative, financial control and oversight roles played by parliaments
in Africa, with Kenya as the main case study in a context of accountability. The regional focus includes all the
countries of East Africa; and Tanzania, Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda for a more detailed regional overview.
The need to strengthen accountability is premised on the importance of having checks and mechanisms for
parliaments to exercise their representative, legislative and oversight functions in a manner that ensures the
prevention of abuse of power and subjects the Executive bodies to processes that open up their activities to
public scrutiny with the possibility that in case they overstep their mandates they can be subjected to sanctions.
The paper examines gaps in accountability and the factors that sustain those gaps. “
