Transparency and Accountability in Public Office of Ebonyi State, Nigeria.
The study evaluated the transparency and accountability in public office of Ebonyi state, Nigeria. Specifically, the objectives are to; examine the relationship between open communication and goal-setting and evaluate the relationship between taking responsibility and feedback in public office. The area of the study was Ebonyi State. The study made use of staff of both federal and state ministries in Ebonyi state. The population of the study was 288 senior staff of the same selected ministries. The whole population was used due to small number. The choice of these ministries was due to high number of staff. The study used the descriptive survey design approach. The primary source of data was the administration of questionnaire. Two hundred and fifty five (255) staff returned the questionnaire and accurately filled. Data was presented and analyzed by mean score and standard deviation using Sprint Likert Scale. The hypotheses were analyzed using Pearson correlation coefficient (r). The findings indicated that Open communication had significant positive relationship with the goal-setting, r (95, n = 255), .517 < .781, p<.05) and Taking responsibility had significant positive relationship with the feedback in public office r (95, n = 255),.385 < .768, p<.05). The study concluded that Open communication and taking responsibility had significant positive relationship with the goal-setting and feedback in public office. The study recommended among others that Open communication should be encouraged in government or public offices to improve engagement as encouraging employees to express their thoughts and feelings openly can help them engage more.