Abstract
The primary concern here is to identify to what extent good accounting system in the Public Sector can ensure Financial Control and Accountability in the Public sector Financial or is a critical factor in management and therefore must be prudently handled and accounted for if the public sector is to realize its goals and objectives. It is on this account that this research work has been undertaken to try and unravel the reasons why government ministries and department most times finds it difficult to control and properly account for finances available to them. Subsequently, a number of reasons have been deduced as being responsible for poor financial control and accountability. They include; Poor implementation of financial regulations, lack of effective internal control system, inadequate reward system and sharp practices by public servants.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
- Background of the study
Government activities nowadays have largely increase. The increase in government functions and activities come as a result of the complex nature of the modern society. For government to live up to its responsibility, care must be taken in the management of scare resources available to achieve these laudable goals. Other than maintenance of law and orders, peace and stability, government is also involved in providing social services such as provision of good roads, transport, portable drinking water, power and energy etc. All these services need money (finance). It is also the duty of government to generate revenue for the achievement of its set goals and objectives- creating social welfare and harmony in the society. Finance is a critical resource in the chain of production and therefore must be prudently used to achieve results. It is on this premise that financial control and accountability in public sector becomes imperative. This research work attempts to discover the reason(s) behind poor performance by government in relation to financial control and accountability in the public sector. Government agencies or the public sector is very heterogeneous in nature and so the nature of financial control is completely different from that of the private sectors in so many ways. At one end we have government owned companies that must be operated like private business, in the middle, our parastatal, that are somewhat amorphous, often having conflicting goals to achieve and then the government machinery itself which is a services outfit, (Azubuike and Njemanze 2006, 15)
Consequently upon the heterogeneous nature of the public sector, the financial regulations guiding the activities or financial transaction in public sector is contained in the law setting it up. Some of such financial statutory regulations are:
a. Finance (Control and Management) Act 1958
b. The Nigerian Constitution
c. Financial Memorandum
d. Financial Regulation
e. Gazette
f. Treasury and circular Letter
g. Accounting manual.
These regulatory framework of public sector accounting mentioned above are applied in varied ways depending on the mode of operation of the government agencies or ministry.
Amara (2009) sums up the benefit of financial control and accountability in the public sector as follows:
