CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
The Ebonyi State Secondary Education Board was established in 1998 with an Edict entitled Secondary Education Edict of 1998. The Board was charged with the responsibility of managing public secondary schools in state. The structure of the Board according to the Edict establishing it is made up of the following member;
- A full time executive chairman who shall be an experienced educationist with proven integrity.
- Secretary
- Three full-time members
- Two part-time members
- A representative each from Ministry of Education and Nigeria Union of Teachers (N.U.T).
The Executive Chairman of the Board shall be the Chief Executive and accounting officer of the Board, and has ultimate responsibility for carrying out polices and decisions of the Board. The Board Secretary shall be responsible for making all the necessary arrangements for Board’s meetings, keeping records of Business transacted at every meeting. Both the secretary and other Board members, are responsible to the chairman for the day – to day running of the Board, and can be assigned duties from time to time by the executive Chairman of the Board.
Also, the Edict establishing SEB provided for three Education zones namely: Ebonyi North, Ebonyi Central and Ebonyi South Education zones. Each Education zone is headed by a chief supervisory principal who is expected to carter to the needs of all the secondary schools within his area of jurisdiction. The Ebonyi Secondary Education Board is expected to perform the following financial functions according to the Edict establishing it.
- Payment of personal emoluments to all staff of the Board,
- Preparation and recommendation of the budget of the Board to the commissioner,
- Award of contracts within the existing state Tender Board regulations
- Collection and rendition of all the approved levies in Secondary schools in the state.
Also, the Board is expected to be self accounting and may delegate to zonal offices of the Board some financial functions such as collection and preparation of annual budgets for secondary schools in the zones, and submitting same to the Board, allocation and distribution of equipments to secondary schools within the zones, over seeing revenue collections and expenditure as well as awarding contracts within the prevailing state Tender Board regulation or any other condition approved the Board. (Ebonyi Secondary Education Editc 1998).
The Ebonyi Secondary Education Board (SEB) is primarily funded by the state Government through budgetary provision in a way of subvention and grants. Budget preparation is usually carried out by the principal and the Heads of the three Education zones at Abakaliki, Afikpo and Onueke as well as the Headquarters of SEB. Budget committees are usually set up at all these levels and headed by the accounting officers. The committee at secondary Education Board headquarters level may summon various departmental heads to appear before it to defend their proposals before making a final draft to be submitted to the Ministry of Education for on ward transmission to the honorable commissioner for finance and Economic Development for further discussion. The submission should be made in ten readable identical copies to reach him on or before July 7th of that Year.
After passing the budget into law by the state House of Assembly, the Ministry of Finance will now allocate the approved fund to secondary Education Board to enable it implement its annual budget. The funds allocated to the Board is disbursed according to the approval that is guided by the ratio according to sub-heads. The Board always has one line-vote, which can be rationed according to the percentage ratio in the original proposal.
The expenditure of SEB could be controlled through checks and balances. For instance, the executive chairman approvers all expenditure, while the Accountant raises the vouchers, the Audit Unit checks the vouchers while the permanent secretary signs the Bank schedule before money is brought out for payment either in cheque or cash.
Since the Ebonyi secondary Education Board has Federal Financial Regulations as one of the financial guidelines in performing its financial functions, some of relevant areas of the document as they effect the present study were reviewed by the researcher with a view to finding out the extent the Board complied with the relevant, provisions of the an extant act or regulation in discharging its statutory financial obligations. These include:- payment procedure, imprest account, internal Audit functions and contract award procedures. The Federal Financial Regulations (FRN 2000:601). reveals that:-
all payment entries in the accounts must be vouched on one of the prescribed forms. Voucher should be made out in favour of person or persons to whom the money is actually due, and should contain full particulars of each service such as dates, numbers, quantities, distance and rates so as to enable them to be checked without reference to any other document.
This implies that account records must be sticky kept by the authority concerned and could be checked at any pointing time without reference to any other document.
Writing on imprest account, (FRN 2000:1101); defined the term imprest as:-
“all sums advanced to officers of the Government to meet expenditure under the current estimated for which voucher cannot be presented immediately to be Accountant General/Accounting Officer of self accounting, Ministry/Extra Ministerial Department”.
In Ebonyi Secondary Education Board, imprests are granted to certain categories of officers. They are Heads of Department, Unit Heads senior administrative officers and principals of secondary schools. Imprest granted to any officer must be retired on or before 31st December every financial year. However, it has been observed that one of the major problems facing Ebonyi SEB in granting imprests to workers was their inability to retire them on or before the end of the year which runs from January to December. This according to the accountant of the Board has made it difficult for other workers to benefit from the scheme.
Writing on the appointment, the policy programme and functions of Internal Auditor financial regulations (FRN 2000:2001) stressed the importance of establishing internal Unit by the accounting officers in their various Ministries/Extra Ministerial Department as:
“to provide complete and continuous audit of account and records of revenue and expenditure, plants, allocated and unallocated stores where applicable”
The Financial Regulations goes further to reveal that Internal Auditor should be appointed to be incharge of the unit and should be directly under the control of the accounting officer. The functions of an internal audit shall include management audit, encompassing other areas of activities and functions of Ministries/Extra-Ministerial Department.
In Ebonyi Secondary Education Board, the Audit Unit is directly attached to the office of the executive chairman of the Board, and independent of accounting department. The Internal Auditor is appointed by the Boards chairman subject to the confirmation of the State Audit, while the workers in audit department are the employees of the Board. Some of the functions of the internal audit of Ebonyi Secondary Education Board include the followings:
- To ensure that the prepared vouchers received in the internal audit must properly deal within four days.
- To ensure that 100% pre-payment vouchers is carried out and the vouchers forwarded under security to central pay office.
- Organize verification exercise for all staff in the board. Apart from the internal audit system in Ebonyi State Secondary Education Board, the State Government through the State Audit provides External Auditor who is expected to audit the accounts of SEB on regular basis.
Writing on contract award procedure, Financial Regulations, (FRN 2000:3201), stated that:-
Government contract should be made in accordance with the ordinary Law of contract through offer by one and acceptance by the others, and that contract should be awarded as a result of competition by Tender unless there are specific reasons to the contrary.
Financial Regulations (2000), goes further to reveal that contract award in government establishment must follow due process. Under due process policy there should be establishment and composition of Tender Board, whose membership should include a senior director of another department who shall serve as the chairman and other members who are made up of officers not below the level of Deputy Directors in their various Departments as well as the Head of accounts and supplies Divisions.
Some of the functions of Tender Board are:- contract publications, tender invitations, tender considerations, term of contract etc. All rules and regulations as recommended by the Board are to be approved by the permanent secretary.
In Ebonyi Secondary Education Board, Contract awarding procedure takes different dimensions. Although Tender Board is said to be formed before awarding any contract in the establishment, due process is not always followed according to the chief accountant of the Board. For instance, the composition of Tender Board are made up of the Executive chairman of the Board, Head of planning and statistics Unit and a representative of state Ministry of Education. This is contrary to the provision of federal financial regulations on the award of government contract.
However, the pertinent question based on the financial practices of Ebonyi State Secondary Education Board is whether it has been able to achieve the goals for which it was established. The answer is not far-fetched bearing in mind that since the establishment of Ebonyi SEB, in 1998, various successive Governments in the State have invested much money in Secondary Education but not much has been achieved by the management Boards. For instance, according to Ebonyi State Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development (2006:2007) between 2006-2007, a total sum of one billion, one hundred and thirty million Naira was approved for Ebonyi Secondary Education Board alone by the State Government in the annual budget as subvention, while a total sum of two hundred and six million Naira was also approved the same year for the same Board as grants and subvention (Approved estimate of Ebonyi State of Nigeria 2006/2007).
Despite this huge financial resources made available to SEB, not much has been achieved. For instance, most of the public secondary schools in the state Lack basic infrastructural developments such as good classroom blocks, water and electricity as well as learning facilities which include well equipped laboratories, libraries, sports equipment etc, payment of teachers salaries and allowances are not always regular. All these show that something must be wrong somewhere along the line in terms of financial management practices of Ebonyi Secondary Education Board.
In order for wise investment to be made, in educational enterprise, school funds must be safeguarded against lose, dishonest and misappropriation. Against this background, this study is designed to evaluate financial management practices of Secondary Education Board Ebonyi State.
Statement of the Problem
Secondary Education Board Ebonyi State is statutory Government Organ. It is expected to manage it’s fund in line with government approved financial regulations. Recently, concerns have been expressed by the people of Ebonyi State especially some of the stakeholders in the education industry such as Nigerian Union of Teachers (N.U.T) Parents Teachers Association (PTA) and others that despite huge amount of money the state Government has invested in Secondary Education in the state, the system was fast collapsing due to the fact that Ebonyi Secondary Education Board has failed to comply with the financial guidelines thus leading to funds mismanagement.
It was clearly stated in the annual budget that between 2006 and 2009, the Ebonyi State through budgetary allocation released a total sum of N1000,130,000000 to Ebonyi Secondary Education Board in a way of grants and subventions. (see appendix 139-172) for more information. The Pertinent question now is how is this huge amount of money utilized by the Board to the development secondary Education in state given the fact that teachers salaries and allowance are not regularly paid, some student still study under mango shades, facilities such as libraries, laboratories and sport equipment are lacking in most public schools.
Reliable empirical evidence are needed so as to determine whether the Board’s financial practices are effective or defective when compare with the statutorily approved financial guideline for undertaken any financial obligation of the Board.
Purpose of the Study
The main purpose of the Study was to evaluate the financial management practices of Secondary Education Board in Ebonyi State in line with the statutorily approved financial guidance specifically, the study was designed to:-
- Find out how contract are awarded in the Board.
- Find out the process of budget making by the Board.
- Find out how auditing is carried out in the Board.
- Find out how the Board disburses it’s statutorily allocated funds.
- Identify ways the staff of the Board are trained and re-trained on financial management matters.
Significance of the Study
This study was considered theoretically significant because it’s findings would add to the existing knowledge in the subject matter area of financial management practices in the higher education sub-sector in Nigeria. Additional theoretical knowledge was important in terms of providing a broader and comprehensive information necessary for obtaining enriched understanding of the nature, and scope of the issue of financial management practices in institutions.
This study would be of immense practical significance to Ebonyi state government secondary education Board and Account workers of the Board. The study would provide information on a number of pertinent issues that are related to effective funding of secondary Education Board.
Government attention would also, be drawn to the lapses of the Board in fund management, and actions it needs to take with respect to funding the Board.
The present study would be of practical importance to Secondary education Board Ebonyi State because, it would sensitize the members to any of the observed lapses, the need for keeping and following proper accounting financial regulation. The study would also be useful because it will provide a basis for encouraging the Board to actively solicit for and explore more local income generation. The expectation was that by so doing, the Board would be rich and be in a better position to meet it’s statutory financial obligation.
The finding would also be useful to account workers of the Board because it would highlight the need for training of staff on budget planning, implementation and on skill in sound financial practices for the Secondary Education sub-sector.
This suggestion would be made possible by communicating the findings of the study to SEB suggesting to it the need.
Scope of the Study
The study covered the following areas of financial management
- Contract award procedure.
- Budget making process
- Financial auditing system
- Fund disbursement
- Training and re-training of workers on financial management matters
Research Questions
