Government Budgeting Process and Implementation Challenges in Nigeria’s Economic Development

Abstract

This study examines the effect of government budgeting and implementation on economic development in Nigerian. The ex-post-facto research design was employed while both primary and secondary sources of data were used. The study was anchored on the Keynesian economic development model as theoretical framework of analysis. Analysis of the data used focused mainly on the data collected from the federal government planned expenditure and actual expenditure in economic, social and administrative sectors for the period 1995-2005. In the analysis of the data, paired sample t-test and Friedman test of significance were used as tools. The result of the analysis revealed that from 1995-2005, the federal government of Nigeria placed more priority on administrative and public debt servicing issues as opposed to economic and social sector, hence the expenditure was not public demand driven. Besides, the result of the analysis revealed the great performance of the Agriculture sector despite its poor allocation which confirms the veracity of the contention that Nigeria is richly endowed in natural resources. Based on these findings, the study recommended among others that efforts should be made by the government to restructure and reform the system of budgeting and budget implementation, monitoring, control and evaluation in Nigeria towards an integrative model that is based on the constraints of resource envelope as this will go a long way in meeting the needs and demands of the citizens.