CHAPTER ONE
1.1 INTRODUCTION/BACKGROUND
Accounting
has often been described as the language of business and accounting profession
as the back bone of organization. This is because accounting besides duties
plays the role of custodian of the finances of such organization and also
serves as the vehicle for employing these funds in such ventures as to promote
survival and growth.
But accounting is a dynamic profession. Like
language it is not static it grows, embracing additional roles in its
development trail. The accounting profession, as it affects the public sector
of the economy, provides figures and information on the past performance of
this sector for planning for the future. Government budgets depend on
information supplied through accounting.
It is a thing of joy that an accounting body in Nigerian, the institute
of chartered accountant s of Nigerian (ICAN), and the association of National,
Accountants of Nigerian (ANAN), has lately accredited two institutions as
recognized training centre for the purpose of training accountants solely for
the public sector.
Today a new
scheme, the accounting technicians scheme (ATS). The Nigerian college of accounting, Joy has
been designed to train and develop the manpower required for the public sector.
However, laudable as this innovation is the content of the is the ATS is
grossly inadequate to turn out the required manpower for the public sector. The
truth is that the curriculum for government accounting is yet to be fully
developed and integrated into the accountancy programmes of our institutions.
Beside, there is a great dealt of textbook on government accounting in the
country, which almost makes the ATS NON-starter.
These are
problems that must be promptly tackled.
The
government treasury schools has provide the public sector accountant the
technical skill, but awards no certificates. As a result of various development
over the years, the complex system of federal, STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT
departments and training organizations as well as various public sector
organisations, operating at national, state and local level.
These
organisations, which are non-proprietary in nature provides goods and services,
, which are often decided no political and collective basis of what is thought
to be needed or signals.
Government
establishment are set up to provides social goods and services for public
welfare, since this establishment finances their activities principally from
governments sub venture which are derived directly and indirectly from
governments various sources of revenue (such as fees, charges, central or local
taxation and borrowing ), the need for a good book-keeping and accounting system,
together with proper accountability for public funds at the operations disposed
cannot be over emphasized. The problems
often encountered by operators of government establishment in maintaining a
good accounting system with a view of enhancing accountability and the prospect
accounting in these establishment is the object of this research work.
1.2 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
It
is worthy to note that accounting information often sufferer a lots of
distortion due to clerical technical and non-professional errors consequently.
Most
operators or practitioners of accounting information desired for management
decisions. Although, these problems are common to the private and public sector
suffer more. Among
the problems common to the government accounting unit are
(a)
Delay in receiving reports from out stations which
subsequently delay the preparation of financial report.
(b) Delay in
presentation and preparation of annual financial statement
(c) Actual values
of expenditures are not reported due to tack of technical skills amongst most
of the accountants in the various sub-sectors
(d) Untimely
reconciliation accounts
(e) Inconsistency
in government accounting system and circum venations of government accounting
regulations and procedures is also making comparism and evaluations difficult
for planning
(f) Using
untrained personnel to do the accounting work.
(g) Irregular
balancing of books of accounts
(h) Lack of
proper and suitable accounting systems.
(i) Inefficiency
of accounting and internal audits.
(j) Ineffective
control systems.
(k) Negative
attitude of government functionaries towards accountability
1.3 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
Certain
objective have informed the choice of this study. The purpose of the study
include:
1.
To establish the effectiveness of the existing
systems of accounting of government unit.
2.
To appraise the system and ascertain their
suitability
3.
To identify and analysis the problems associated
with the system of accounting adopted by these organisations, examine their
root causes and based on the outcome of the analysis draw conclusion
4.
To undertake a prospective view of government
accounting need and identify possible improvement development of its
application by the public sector
1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY
Having identified and analyzed the
problems and prospect of accounting in the public sector accompanied by the
desired recommendation to remedy these problems so as to pave a way for
improved quality of accounting information prepared and presented by government
accounting personnel or practitioners, it is hoped that this project work will
enhanced decisions making of users of such accounting information. To this end,
it is felt that the following group of users would benefit from this projects
1.
Staff and practitioners of government accounting who
would find the information in improving their job.
2.
It will serve as a reference material to accounting
students, lectures and researchers who might lay their hands on a copy in the
library for permanent and research purposes in the futures.
3.
Moreover, the success of this work could be of
immense benefit to the operations of government establishment whose financial
information need for decision making purpose in very paramount
4.
Finally, the general public also stands to benefit
from this work in a various ways.
1.5 LIMITATION OF THE STUDY
A
research work of this nature is a lengthy one and the research, though intend
to conduct an extensive survey, nevertheless the study shall be restricted to
selected government establishments in PHCN..
Moreover, in
carrying out the research, certain category of people, which include
accountants, other accounts, audit and stores personnel from grade level of and
above in these selected few are best suited these for a research of this kind.
Other limitation factors which might
further create some constraints include the following.
1.
Time constraint
2.
Resources at the researchers disposal
3.
Availability of relevant data of information
4.
Existence of other limiting factors not readily
envisaged