International political economy: north south relations and neocolonialism France ‘pushing’ through an accounting reform in its former African colony

Abstract

This paper examines the case of a government accounting reform in a former French colony in Africa, nicknamed T Republic1, through the lens of international political economy. The reform is concerned with the introduction of a computerised recording and reporting process in the government accounting system. It is particularly important since it was introduced at a time when there was almost no set of government accounting information and financial statistics. Further, in addition to improving governance, decision making and government accountability among other objectives, the reform has also the potential of developing local capability in the area of government accounting technology rooted in the local environment through learning by experience. However, the reform failed to achieve these objectives in a significant manner. North-South relations and neo-colonial factors are found to have led to this lack of success

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