BUDGET DISCIPLINE AND MANAGEMENT OF FUND (A CASE STUDY OF UGHELLI NORTH LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF DELTA STATE)
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TABLE OF CONTENT: CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION 1.1
Background of the Study 1.2
Statement of the Research Problem 1.3
Objectives of the Study 1.4
Significance of the Study 1.5
Research Questions 1.6
Research Hypothesis 1.7
Conceptual and Operational Definition 1.8
Assumptions 1.9
Limitations of the Study CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1
Sources of Literature 2.2
The Review 2.3
Summary of Literature Review CHAPTER THREE RESEARCH
METHODOLOGY 3.1
Research Method 3.2
Research Design 3.3
Research Sample 3.4
Measuring Instrument 3.5
Data Collection 3.6
Data Analysis 3.7
Expected Result CHAPTER FOUR DATA ANALYSIS AND
RESULTS 4.1
Data Analysis 4.2
Results 4.3
Discussion CHAPTER FIVE SUMMARY AND
RECOMMENDATIONS 5.1
Summary 5.2
Recommendations for Further Study Bibliography |
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CHAPTER
ONE |
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1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE
STUDY According
to the Oxford Advanced learners of contemporary English, “a budget is an
official statement by the government of a country’s income from taxes, etc.
and how it will be spent in a particular period. T.
Lucey defines a budget as “a plan expressed in money. It is prepared and approved prior to the
budget period and may show income, expenditure and the capital to be
employed. It may be drawn up showing
incremental effects on former budgeted or actual figures or be compiled by
zero-based budgeting. R. A. Adams sees a
budget as “a future plan of action for the whole organization or a section
thereof. He also defined a budget as a
financial and or quantitative statement prepared and approved prior to a
defined period of time of the policies to be pursued by the organization in
order to achieve organizational goals and objectives. From
the aforementioned, a budget is, simply put, a plan of how a person, an
organization or government will generate money and spend same within a given
period of time. Man,
as a social animal who must fend for itself has over the eons learnt the
necessity of planning if he must survive.
He (man) up the ante when he began manufacturing/producing goods. This increased again with the
institutionalization of the government apparatus. When man turned over his security into a
body, it became necessary for this body (government) to provide a minimal
level of security, comfort, education, etc for man. To secure these services, taxes where
imposed and collected and then redistributed.
This called for planning, hence the birth of budgeting in
governance. Since a budget is intent,
it means that it could deviate from the proposed goals. This could be due to various reasons
ranging from human, a fall in revenue generated or poor policy implementation
and/or poor fiscal discipline. In other to avoid this, a budget ought to be
and should be backed by in built checks and regulatory frame work to ensure
discipline and policy implementation be it an individual, corporate bodies or
as in this case, governments. Budget
discipline is akin to budget control.
According to R. A. Adams, budgetary control is “the establishment of
budget, relating the responsibility of the executives to the requirement of
the policy and the continuous comparison of actual performance with budgeted
level so as to secure either by individual or collective action the
objectives of such policies or a revision thereof”. From the above
definition, budget discipline means a deliberate attempt of comparing
results/performance with the intended outcome. Thus, corrections or adjustments could be
made to ensure optimal budgetary performance. Functionally,
government has a responsibility towards its citizens – to provide adequate
security, social amenities and infrastructural development. Consequently, budget implementation should
be devoid of partisan politics and party affiliations and
favouritism/nepotism. The
local government is the third tier of government (Federal being first and the
state government being second respectively) in Nigeria. It goes without saying that the state
government wields considerable influence over the Local Government Councils. Be that as it were, the functions of Local
Government Councils are now recognized by the (Fourth schedule) of the
Nigeria constitution. These functions
which are not limited to, include the following: 1.
Collection of rates, radio and T.V.
licence fees 2.
Naming of roads and numbering of
houses. 3.
Registration of deaths, births and
marriages 4.
Establishment and maintenance of
market stalls, car parks and public conveniences 5.
Licensing of bicycles, motor-cycles,
trucks, cars etc. 6.
Assessment of properties for the
purpose of levying tax 7.
Establishment and maintenance of
cemeteries, burial grounds and home for the destitute and infirm. 8.
Construction and maintenance of
roads, streets, drains, parks and other public facilities prescribed by the
state legislature. A
Local Government is controlled by the office of the Governor. The Council submits its budget to the
office of the Governor where it is examined and approved. The sources of
revenue of a Local Government Council can be grouped into three: (a)
Statutory: Here the Federal government pays 20% from
the Federation Account direct into the Council direct. (b)
Permissive sources of income: These include license fees, special rates,
tenement rates etc. (c)
Incidental sources of Revenue: These include proceeds from economic
project, grants from federal, state governments and international donors,
loans, investment incomes, donations, etc. While it is not
arguable that the sources of revenue to a local government council are
limited, however, it is an axiomatic fact that much money comes into the
councils. The question is: Do we feel
the impact of such monies? One must
not lose sight of the fact that the local council was contrived to bring
government closer to the people so that it (government) can be felt at the
grass root level. In
the local government council, there ought to be a budget office whose
function is to provide budget function, budget implementation and fiscal
policies. It is worthy to note that
the budget office has six departments.
Four of these departments are operational departments which consist of
Revenue, Expenditure, Budget Monitoring and Evaluation and Fiscal Polices
departments. The other two are service
departments and consists of Administrations departments. Each of these departments can be
sub-divided into divisions for functional purposes. It
is imperative to note that all budget systems have three basic tasks: (a)
Maintaining aggregate fiscal disciplines (b)
Allocate resources in accord with
government priorities (c)
To promote efficient delivery of
services. It
is sad to note that inspite of these existing structures, when it comes to
the nitty gritty of budgeting and budget implementation, these structures are
abandoned and are at best reduced to center for the collection and collation
of budgetary figures! One
thing that is common in the average Nigerian psyche is the ability to put
forward well intended plans. However,
when it comes to execution that is another thing all together. Consequently, budgets and their
presentations are seen as annual rituals by government officials. We pay lip service to the implementation of
budgetary proposals and thus the populace is the worse for it! 1.2 THE PEOPLE OF
UGHELLI NORTH LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA Nigeria
has (774) seven hundred and seventy-four Local Government Areas. Following the creation of Delta State on
August 27, 1991 out of the defunct Bendel State by the Ibrahim Babaginda administration,
Ughelli North Local Government Area was created in 1991 as one of the new
local councils. Ughelli
North Local Government Council is bounded to the East by Isoko North Local
Government Council, to the West by Okpe Local Government Council, to the
South by Patani Local Government Council and to North by Ukwuani Local
Government Council. According
to the 1992 population census, Ughelli North Local Government Council has a
population figure of 0.8 million persons.
The local council is inhabited by the Urhobo speaking ethnic
group. The headquarter, i.e.
administrative headquarters of this local council in Ughelli town. Other major town in the Council includes
Agbarha-Otor, Evwreni, Orogun, Uwheru, Agbarho and Ewu. The
people engage in agriculture, hunting and trapping of animals, fishing and
local arts and crafts. The
Local Government Council is richly endowed with natural resources which
include Kaolin, sharp sands, crude oil/petroleum and natural gas. Because of its natural endowment, the local
council receives huge sums of money from the Federation Accounts as it is
statutorily recommended. For instance
in the month of May 2004, the Local Government Council received a total sum
of N66, 730,444.49 as its allocation.
If we hold this figure constant, it would translate to the fact that
for the year 2004, the council received the sum of N800, 765,333.88! That is a whooping sum of eight hundred
million naira from the Federation Account alone. If other sources of income – 10% from the
state, internally generated funds, grants in aid and loans, it would run into
billions for a year. For instance, the
budget outline for the Local Government Council for 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007
and 2008 is shown below. This is
actually in raw figures and not broken down into specifics. The
above budget estimates are fantastic to say the least. However, one wonders what happened during
the implementation. This is because in
five years, the council expended/budgeted a total sum of N8, 484 billions but
what do we have to show for it? 1.3 STATEMENT OF THE
PROBLEMS In
the course of carrying out this investigative research, the ability to get
relevant and reliable data relating to budgeting and budget implementation in
Ughelli North Local Government Council remained a daunting task. This may not be unconnected with the fact
that people were skeptical as to the use for which the figures were being
asked and also those in possession of such information would not want to divulge
same due to its “classified” nature since it would be obvious that these
figure which were actually bloated would now be in public domain. At
the present, there is the urgent need for government to ensure strong fiscal
discipline and spending so as to ensure the fulfillment of her primary purpose. Thus the budget monitoring and
implementation department should ensure that due process is followed in her
activities and same should follow the use of a comprehensive integrated
accounting system, which provides a reliable basis for assessing payment
arrears in the treasury. They should
also go out into the field to monitor projects and filled detailed reports. However,
we know that the evaluation of performance on specific job indices would be
difficult because of worker attitude.
Workers are of the view that the expression of and personal loyalty to
their superiors is more important and is expected of them than the need for
efficient and effective contribution to achieve job or budget objectives. The
Research problems which the researcher intends to find out are: (i)
What strategies or systems can be
adopted for performance evaluation in Ughelli North Local Government Area? (ii)
What strategies can be adopted to
evaluate staff attitude towards jobs in Ughelli North Local Government Area? (iii)
How best can the excesses of an
Executive Chairman be put in check. (iv)
How effective is the legislative arm
of the Ughelli North Local Government Area? (v)
What is the relationship between the
Executive and Legislative Like? (vi)
What other inhibitors are associated
with fund management in Ughelli North Local Government Area? (vii)
How are funds managed for the benefit
of the stakeholders in Ughelli North Local Government Council? 1.4 OBJECTIVES OF THE
STUDY The
objectives of any research are usually a mirror image of the research
questions and the knowledge gap it intends to fill. The objectives of this study are as
follows: (i)
To examine the strategies or systems
adopted for performance evaluation in Ughelli North Local Government Area. (ii)
To examine the strategies adopted for
evaluation of staff attitude towards jobs in Ughelli North Local Government
Area. (iii) To
find and proffer solutions to existing (if any) excesses of the Executive
Chairman. (iv) To
find out the usefulness of the legislative laws and their implementation. (v)
To find and proffer solutions to the management
of funds in Ughelli North Local Government Area. (vi) To
determine if or not a cordial relationship exists between the Executive and
the Legislative arms in Ughelli North Local Government Area. (vii) To
find and proffer amenable reforms that will strengthen budget implementation
in the Local Government. 1.5 SCOPE OF THE STUDY In
any scientific research, the area under study gives the population. It may not be very feasible to access the
whole population, thus for convenience, a particular size or number is taken. This number would then be subjected to certain
scientific analysis. This number is
termed the sample. Delta
State has twenty-five (25) local government areas. Ughelli North been created in 1991 has
existed for more than eighteen years (18) now. It would be quite an arduous task to
collate all annual budgetary figures of the twenty-five local councils and
subject same to scientific analysis. In
view of the aforesaid, Ughelli North Local Government Area was chosen and
specifically the years 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008 were chosen. This choice was not based on any scientific
approach or parameters but for ease of administration and to cut cost. On this note, the scope of this study is
limited to analysis carried out on budget discipline and management of funds
in Ughelli North Local Government Area of Delta State. It is pertinent to note that Ughelli North
Local Government Area is an oil (crude oil) producing area. It receive huge sum from the federation
account monthly. But how has these
funds been managed? 1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE
STUDY The
relevance of this study cannot be over-emphasized. It is my candid view that this study will
contribute in no small measure to the existing stock of knowledge on topics
of this nature. It will also be of
significance in the following ways: (i)
It will assist the local governments
in Ughelli North in improving their fiscal responsibility and to spend her
funds towards fulfilling her primary purpose. (ii)
It will pave ways to detect
inefficiency and indiscipline among all stakeholders. (iii) It
will proffer corrective measure to be taken to enhance fiscal and budget
implementation discipline. (iv) It
will also show that government spending is sustainable, create value for
money and direct the local council towards its objectives and priorities. (v)
It will assist local governments in
the future when they (the council) is preparing for budgeting. |
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