Resumo:
The creation of a General Controllership (CGU) in the executive branch of the Brazilian federal government in
2003 brought in its wake the creation or transformation of a variety of institutions in public controllership at the
state level. We have assumed that this development resulted from the needs of public managers for institutions
that can not only monitor the actions taken by the public administration but also provide information useful to
government managers, but this assumption needs to be tested. This article investigates whether the functions
actually performed by the institutions of the Brazilian public controllership match the controllership functions
defined in the literature. We studied a sample of 14 Brazilian public sector controllership institutions, one at the
federal level and 13 at the state level. We found that in addition to contributing to the decision process, the
studied public controllership institutions provided public managers with a means of monitoring the activities of
public programs. Therefore, the data demonstrate that the functions performed by the institutions of Brazilian
public controllership conform with the definitions of controllership functions found in the literature.
