Accounting to the Public Sector as Institutional Mechanism for Improving Accountability

Accounting information is a tool that provides accountability, which can be considered the reason for the Accounting. This paper discusses Applied Accounting Public Sector as a state institutional mechanism and non-institutional improvement accountability. The methodology used in this research was deductive with foundation in Articles 84 and 110 of Federal Law 4,320/1964 Financial Law Act, and discussions on accountability mechanisms put forward by Oakerson (1989), Paul (1992), O'Donnell (1998, 1999), Schedler (1999), Dunn (1999), Elster (1999), Keohane (2002), Mainwaring (2003), Abrucio and Loureiro (2004). Th(1)e considerations of this study are to the effect that the Applied Accounting Public Sector can be characterized, preferably, as a state institutional mechanism for accountability, whose role is to monitor, supervise, control, and prerogatives to demand accountability on the part of public officials, however, no "powers" of punishment or sanction, but can in a roundabout way to exercise that prerogative as a precondition for improving accountability.