ABSTRACT
Accounting system is aimed at ensuring a maximum amount of information is available to the users that will enable them take meaningful decision regarding their interest in a reporting entity. This study was carried out on the impacts of accounting system in public sector. The scope of the research work was limited to Nigeria Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) across different levels of organizational hierarchy. The design adopted for the study is survey design. A sample size of One Hundred and ten (110) was chosen from the total population. The primary data were collected through questionnaire that was administered to employees of Nigeria Airspace Management Agency (NAMA). The SPSS statistical package was used for analysis in order to minimize any intended error. The study revealed that accounting system has significant effect on management decision making at a statistically significant level. The study also revealed that the public sector needs informed financial decisions that would enhance overall performance. The study shows that accounting system depends on the perception of the quality of information by the user. The study recommended that companies should consult professional accountants when starting a business to learn about the various laws that affect them also to familiarize themselves with the variety of financial records that they will need to maintain.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
History has it that the concept of accountability of public funds dates backs to the history of ancient Greece. As old as theory is, it would not be enormous to say that the idea has been equally lost to antiquity although not much is known about it, this makes the subject, government accounting to remain a myth. Accounting in the public sector has received such a wide attention from scholars that the field of public sector accounting scans to be neglected.
However, there is general awareness all over the world of the need to pay greater attention to the development of government accounting and financial control. The reason is obvious, government, in most, if not all nations constitute the largest single business entity in many places, the core of the economy. Government in any society is basically for maintaining law and order. With changes and the complete nature of the society, government responsibility has automatically changed from the role of maintaining law and order to business like nature in the modern era. The enormous activities of government, equally call for enlarged government accounting in order to accommodate the immense task. As a result of this development, the traditional cash procedures of accounting can hardly meet the demands of reasonable accounting for modern government in providing necessary services or information. Therefore, there is need for government accounting to be dynamic in order to accommodate both the fundamental roles and the developments.
From the earliest time, the process of levying and collection of taxes by government called for proper record keeping and report. Such accounting records prepared by Tax collectors served as a basis to reinforce business need for accounting systems and controls.
The development of social life especially the formation of states or sovereignties and levying of taxes necessitated in addition to the knowledge of number, a power of holdings, counting’s and recording in this we find the origin of science in accounting.
Early civilization shows that the Babylonian business men recorded their sales and money lending some thousand years ago in day tablets. Egyptians used papyr, to describe the collections before 1000bc.
According to Richards Brown. (yr) the History of Accounting and Accountant Volume 2, he stated that Greek and Romans had well developed record keeping system especially for government purposes. Emperor Augustus was said to have instituted a governmental budget. Inspectors from the central government in Rome were sent out to examine the accounts of provisional governors. The Grecian also have their accounts engraved on stone and exposed in. public specimen, such accounts are among the Elgin marbles in the British Museum. In Great Britain, the earliest systems of accounting of which there is record are those of exchequers of England and Scotland.
