CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Government accounting according to Adebisi (1990), “government accounting is the process of collecting recording, sorting, classifying and compiling in summarized and monetary terms of all information about public expenditure and resources and communicating the same to the appropriate level of management and efficient control of public funds and resources in line with the lay down rules and regulation.          The key area of interest of the government accounting to the management and public at large and upon which greater emphasis is being placed, is that aspect of efficient management of financial resources and accountability as every citizen. Within the state is assumed to be a contributor to the government funds, follows therefore everybody has the right to ask question or know how much was collected, spent, and for what purpose or how the fund would be effectively managed. The dwindling resources of the nation vice-visa, the increasing needs of government for more financial resources to meet the elastic and competing demands, of the citizen calls for an appraised for the existing financing management mechanism. Financial resources are entrusted to one person or group of persons or organization for the purpose of achieving an objective hence, the person who gave the financial resources after the achievement of the objectives. Through the civil service that government develops and implements policies and programmes, financial accountability8 to the civil services is a process by which the financial resources pulled together by the people to the cane of the government, is properly managed and accounted by the government and the entire citizen. Attention should be directed towards ascertaining whether expenditure has been incurred according to the goals of the government, also if the resources have been used according o the lay down polices or prescribed. The federal system of government that is being practiced in Nigeria gives room for the tier of government via federal, state and local government. There are thirty six (36) states government and seven hundred and seventy four (774) local governments in Nigeria to this day year of 2013.
1.2 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
There has been a lot of public outcries on the poor management of financial resources, improper implementation of government policies and accountability. In public owned organization perhaps, it is an attempt to overcome the budget difficulties being expenses by the Nigeria State government that financing in the public sector involved which tend to make the financial accountability in the civil services is very cumbersome task. However, people need to know why government has not been able to use effective available resources to finance its entire project and due to inadequate management resources.Â
