Accountability or Prestação de Contas, CGU or Courts of Accounts: examining different views on the role of regulatory agencies in Brazilian municipalities

Abstract

The lack of cognitive models to explain the concept of accountability can be synthesized in the absence of a single term in the Portuguese language since Accountability is usually considered a word whose meaning is incomplete. The impact of cognitive models in the form of audit is taken is very important.  Courts of Accounts were established in Brazil since Old Republic while CGU was created in 2003.  In this paper, we analyze the conceptual differences between the Courts of Accounts and Federal Comptroller General regarding accountability. Despite many municipal actions receive a dual inspection, data shows a wide divergence between the results obtained by respective TCE and CGU. The performance of the latter is closer to an audit of performance, reporting on average a larger number of irregularities in the cities, whereas in the Courts of Accounts, it is usually done audit of compliance, with relatively minor findings.