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Full Length Research
Paper
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Fiscal planning and local government administration in
Nigeria: The quest for sustainable rural development
Samihah Khalil and
Salihu Abdulwaheed Adelabu*
Ghazali Shafie Graduate School
of Government, College of Law, Government and International
Studies, Northern University of Malaysia, 06010, UUM Sintok,
Kedah, Malaysia.
*Corresponding author. E-mail:
Adelabusalihu21@gmail.com.
Accepted 7
October, 2011 |
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Abstract |
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The raison
d’etre of a local government is to collect its revenue
efficiently and to use that revenue to provide infrastructural
development for its tax payers. Local government as the third
tier of government cannot, therefore be ideal from the financial
view lens if it collects its revenue in a slip-shod manner and
devotes a large percentage of it to the maintenance of a top-
heavy administrative set-up, with a relatively small proportion
of the revenue left for the provision of infrastructural
development which are of direct benefits to the local
inhabitants. The purpose of this paper is to critically examine
local government accountability in respect of budget and
budgeting system in order to improve sustainable development at
the local level. The paper tries to study the main source of
revenue of local governments in Nigeria, and determine how the
resources are utilized to deliver infrastructural development to
the people. Also, information on budget and budgeting of Irepo
local government is analyzed in the study. There are 774 local
governments in Nigeria. This research study covers 33 local
governments in terms of disbursement of statutory allocation,
and Irepo local government in terms of budget and budgeting
analysis. As far back as 1999, the Nigerian local governments
are being given enough by the Federal Government in order to
provide infrastructural development to the citizens in the local
area, but it seems the said public revenue are being mismanaged
by political leaders and local governments’ officials in
Nigeria. The findings of this paper revealed that < 5% of the
statutory allocation accrued to the local governments under
consideration is being expended on infrastructural development,
while > 10% is used for personnel expenditure as the cost of
delivering infrastructural development by local governments in
Nigeria. So, further researches can still be carried out on
fiscal planning by local governments for sustainable development
in the remaining local governments in Nigeria. This paper
therefore recommended that the policy/decision-makers should
make use of the findings of this study to help inform future
decisions on fiscal planning in the local government
administration in order to bring about sustainable development
to the rural dwellers in the local governments. It is found that
there is need for proactive measure for fiscal planning in order
to sustain infrastructural development in the local government
administration. Also found, is that local governments need to
put in place a good fiscal planning that will sustain
development at the local level.
Key words:
Fiscal planning, sustainable development, local government.
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