Budget Analysis of the Capital Expenditure Trend of Local Governments in Rivers State, Nigeria (2003-2017)
- September 4, 2020
- Posted by: RSIS Team
- Categories: Economics, IJRIAS
International Journal of Research and Innovation in Applied Science (IJRIAS) | Volume V, Issue V, May 2020 | ISSN 2454-6194
Sampson Alele Beals
Department of Quantity Surveying, Rivers State University, Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria
Abstract: – Capital expenditures of Local governments form the spring board for infrastructure development. The strength and pattern of capital expenditure over time can reveal the nature of government emphasis on infrastructure provision. This study analyses the budgetary trend of capital expenditure of Rivers State Local government areas. The population of this study is the 23 local governments of Rivers state, Nigeria. Secondary data were collected which included both aggregate capital expenditure and disaggregate capital expenditure of selected infrastructure sectors spanning 2003-2017 from yearly appropriation bill or budgets of local governments in the state. Using descriptive statistics and analysis of variance (ANOVA), the Study reveals that capital expenditure as a percentage of the total revenue expenditure of government is low in the local government areas of Rivers state. Further, the spatial distribution of capital expenditure significantly differs across the LGAs and across infrastructural sectors. Forecasting capital expenditure from one local government to another is thus difficult. The local government expenditures are more on recurrent expenditure in comparison to capital expenditure. This depicts a poor situation for infrastructural development in the LGAs. It is recommended that the local governments allocate more funds to capital expenditures than recurrent expenditures, and beef up their capital expenditures to health and agriculture/rural development which are noted to be neglected but are fore front sectors that are quite needful.
Key words: Infrastructure, capital expenditure, expenditure trend, budget, local government areas.
