Abstract:
The role of the third-tier of government in societal development has become broader, deeper and even more sophisticated in the current dispensation. Thanks to the numerous reforms which have been visited on local government within the last few decades. In spite of this however, the performance of the third-tier so far in developing the society, more especially the grassroots has been quite unsatisfactory. It is in the light of this that this work dwelt on the control mechanisms and the management of the funds of Local Governments in Nigeria using Anambra State as its case study. Effective control mechanism is a pre-requisite for good financial accounting to be achieved in the local government system. Local government accounting aims at providing analysis of revenue and taxes realized and for this to be adequately taken care of, there is need for the establishment of an effective and efficient control mechanisms in the financial management of Local Government funds. In view of the situation, this research attempts to address some pertinent issues which include highlighting some of the control mechanisms provided in the Financial Memoranda and other operating guidelines as well as the faithful application of these mechanisms in the Local Government system. Attention was also paid to the factors that hinders the successful application of these mechanisms. The research went further to identify a number of findings which include the attitudes of the chairmen towards internal control measures, non-adherence to the provisions of Financial Memoranda, large scale corruption among career civil servants and the political officials, among other myriads of findings. These findings were of course not without some negative implications. We have identified some of them to include, low revenue base, administrative ineptitude and inefficiency, gross underdevelopment of the grassroots, unemployment among the teeming youths, abject poverty among the rural dwellers and many more. However, the researchers also went ahead to proffer some useful recommendations which if religiously implemented to the latter, there will be proper financial accountability in the control and management of Local Government funds and resources and the noble ideal of fostering development by way of efficient service delivery to the local people will be greatly achieved.
