PROBLEM OF BUDGET AND BUDGET IMPLEMENTATION IN THE MINISTRY OF FEDERAL CAPITAL TERRITORY ABUJA
CHAPTER ONE
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE PROBLEM:
Nigeria is rich but majority cf her citizens are poor. Although, evidently, generously endowed, Nigeria has been unable to transform its riches into economic development commensurate with her level o f endowments. Thus, the vast majority of Nigerians suffer in the’midst of plenty with more than half of the population living below the poverty line. The reason for this state of affairs is attributed to the fact that economic development plans have not achieved the desired .Where sound economic policies were enunciated, implementation has been shoddy and has at best stunted growth. The difference between the rural poor and the urban poor has become insignificant.
The challenge pacing Nigeria since independence has not been one of ability to generate wealth. The challenge has been one of efficiently managing its wealth to the advantage of a larger fraction of its citizenry. Attempts made so far to meet – this challenge, has provided opportunity for Nigeria to experiment with a number of economic and fiscal options through its budget.
It is imperative at this time based on the country’s experience to review its budget and budgetary processes in order to gain a clear perspective as it concerns taxes, expenditures, debt as a whole.
1.2 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM:
It is a common knowledge that most government establishment in Nigeria are not performing up to expectations. The fact that all of them are run with allocations from Government rather than out of results of their performance has given rise to the problem of hiding inefficiency in these establishments. The other problem from this dependency syndrome subsidy includes the problem of inadequate strategic and operational planning with the result that their budget grow out of precedents (incremental)
Many studies have been conducted by administrative scholars on the causes and dynamics of the worsening productivity
of our public establishments, but very little attempt has been made to examine the nature of budget and budgetary processes, and to see if there is any relationship between the current method of budgetary process as compared with the low productivity
The federal capital territory administration has the status of a state just like any other states in Nigeria but it is being run more as a federal ministry in line with the federal civil service rules which invariably, places it under the head of service of the federation.
Considering the dual nature of Federal Capital Territory administration some fundamental question were raised.
- What is the nature of budget and budgetary implementation in the federal capital territory?
- What are the factors that have militated against the effective budget implementation in the federal capital territory.
- Federal capital Territory is enjoying both the status of a state as well as a ministry, therefore, could this uncertain status be affecting its budget and budgetary implementation since the
budget cannot clearly define as either a state or a ministry’s budget.
It is the task of this study to proffer answers to the above questions.
1.3 OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY:
Project or programme implementation has been the basic of most countries. Programme failure in such countries are caused by various factors such as excessive haste in planning, faulty planning, performance failure and corrupt practices.
Based on the assertion stated above, it is the objective of this study
to;
- Critically examine the budgetary control mechanism of the ministry of fednral capital territory, Abuja.
- Identify the factors responsible for the poor implementation of their budget
- Make recommendation based on the findings.
1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY:
This study is expected to contributed to the existing knowledge and burgeoning literatures dealing on the impact of budgeting for effective control in federal ministries and other government agencies especially the ministry of Federal Capital Territory Abuja.
The significance of the study also lies in the fact that not only will the result of the. study reveal the inhere~tstrengths and weaknesses in the administration of budget in Government establishments, the elimination of
such weaknesses, where they exist, wiil no doubt improve the performance
of Government establishments.
The findings and recommendations will also guide top government
functionaries, members of both the Federal and State legislators on the
need for proper budget implementation, it will also contribute and stimulate
further research interests in this area of budgeting and budget
implementation.
1.5 SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY:
This study is designed to cover and assess the problems of budget implementation in the ministry of federal capital territory, Abuja.The limitations encountered in the course of this work ranges from time constraints to financial problems.
The time span for the study was inadequate in view of the
complexities involved in the type of problem, the research was poised to
address.
However, the research probed into key issues which dealt with the problem it set out to solve.
Finance was also a major handicap, given the huge financial involvement in the collection of both Primary and Secondary data, needed for effective ‘completion of this research. These notwithstanding, the research was successfully concluded with the limited resources available for the work.