“Can accountability be delegated?” Explain in brief.
A noteworthy question arises in the context of accountability that whether an officer by delegating authority can eschew from accountability or ultimate responsibility? Thus, is he not accountable to his senior officers for the work performance of his subordinates once he has delegated authority? All these questions will be answered in ‘No’ because only authority can be delegated and not the accountability.
For example, a Chief Manager assigns jobs to a Departmental Manager who in turn assigns it to his subordinate. Departmental manager along with assigning the job, will also delegate authority but this will not terminate his accountability. He will always be answerable to his boss for the work-performance of his subordinates. On the basis of this, there would be no anomaly to say that just authority can be delegated but not accountability. Thus, accountability is always of the person who delegates authority.
