CHAPTER ONE
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Finance has been a problem facing the government. The government of Nigeria is made up of the federal, state and local government which is preferably called the three tiers of government. But however, this work is only limited to the local government. Local government forms the third tier of government in Nigeria. The aim of creating local government is to decentralize government so that local government which is nearest to the people will enable the people to participate in development process of their area. Local government is also referred to as government at this grassroots level. To carry out its function, the local government must have readily available finances. This is because the need for finance is very important in any establishment. In defining what finance is various perspectives from different aspects are recognized? 1. The layman understands finance as the volume of money held as cash and cash balances at bank. 2. The investor sees finance as the possession of funds when it is needed for investments. 3. The academics sees finance as the discipline that studies the science of funds management, which includes the institutions that are involved in sourcing funds such as the money market institutions, insurance market institutions and mortgage market institutions etc. These guidelines help in generating funds and funds management.
1.2 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
One of the problems facing the local government is that they have limited source of revenue. Apart from revenue accruing from the federation accounts all other source of revenue do not yield much fund. This federation accounts services as the federal government budget estimates. In 1996 the vertical sharing from the federation accounts placed the local government on 20.0%. The federating government of Nigeria is empowered with the responsibility of generating and distributing revenue accruing from oil and non-oil revenue.
1.3 OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
The objective of the work is to explore into the hindrance against effective measures undertaken to curtail the low rate of finance in local government. It will help in ensuring that adequate controls exist over the receipt custody and disbursement of funds, that all its transactions are promptly and properly accounted for and all documents and records relating to the financial transaction are accurate and complete.