ASSESSMENT OF PUBLIC FINANCE MANAGEMENT PRACTICES IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT COUNCILS IN ENUGU STATE
Abstract
The study assessed the public finance management practices adopted by Local Government Councils in Enugu State. To achieve the objective, four specific purposes were answered while three null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The study adopted survey research design. The population of the study was 51 public finance managers made up of the treasurers, cashiers, and internal auditors. In view of the relatively small size, the entire population was studied. The instrument used for data collection was a 42-item structured questionnaire titled: Finance Management Practice Questionnaire (FMPQ). The instrument was face-validated by three experts in Business Education unit of the Department of Vocational Teacher Education, University of Nigeria Nsukka. To establish the reliability of the questionnaire, Cronbach Alpha reliability technique was used and an overall coefficient of 0.77 was obtained for the entire instrument. Data for the study were collected by the researcher with the help of three research assistants. All the 51 copies of questionnaire administered were retrieved representing 100% return rate. Data collected were analyzed using mean to answer the research questions while t-test statistics and analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. Based on the data analysed, the study found that accounting staff in local governments in Enugu State adopted only 24 out of 42 identified fund management practices. There were no significant differences in the mean ratings of rural and urban accounting staff on revenue generation practices adopted by accounting staff of Local government in the state. There were no significant differences in the mean ratings of accounting staff based on their designation years of experience on fund management practices adopted. Based on the findings of the study, the study among others recommended that the state government through its local government service commission should help organize periodic workshop and conferences for accounting staff of local government in the state to update their fund management competencies and practices.