ACCOUNTABILITY AND FINANCIAL REPORTING IN NIGERIA PUBLIC FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT: AN EMPIRICAL EXPLORATION

Financial reporting is one of the best indices of accountability. However, accountability and transparency in Nigeria leave a lot of room for improvement. The accountability and control apparatus in the public service has some minimum technical components that should elicit tolerable standards of accountability and transparency. This paper examines Fiscal accountability, Managerial accountability, Program accountability, and Individual accountability within the context of the role of government/public sector financial reporting in public accountability in Nigeria. Personal interviews and Accountability Evaluation Questionnaires were used as research instruments. Descriptive statistics were employed in analysing the data. The study reveals that the effective implementation of development policies and programs is anchored on purity of action, honesty of purpose, probity and intergrity, which are important hallmarks of accountability and transparency. There are reasonable regulations, albeit inadequate, due to outdated accounting procedures, stringent sanctions and poor public financial auditing. While financial reporting is considered the best index of accountability, it holds also that accounting remains the undisputable index of stewardship. However, both financial reporting and accountability stand to lack their true essence if they are based on outdated and unwholesome accounting procedures and practices that inhibit complete and accurate recording and measurement of government resource inputs and the resultant outputs. Although most of the developed and some of the developing countries have witnessed radical Public sector reform initiatives in terms of changing roles of state and its impact on public sector management resource and efficiency, the same could not be said of Nigeria, the supposed ‘giant ‘of black Africa whose public accounting and financial management are based on traditional cash-based accounting system. Nigeria public sector accounting is obviously lagging behind international trend towards a unified global public sector accounting standards; and also lacking in providing the financial information required for the discharge of her fiscal, managerial, program and public accountability responsibilities. It is also recognized that the existing structures of public sector resource management and management practices, including accounting information systems used in the general government sector in Nigeria, are inadequate to ensure the fulfillment of government plans aimed at a more effective utilization of Nigeria’s public resources. This paper undertakes a critical review of government financial reporting and accountability system, and carries out an empirical examination of the various aspects of accountability viz: Fiscal accountability, managerial accountability, program accountability, and individual accountability within the context of the role of government financial reporting in public accountability in Nigeria while providing appropriate recommendations on the required improvement of Nigeria public sector corporate accounting and reporting system that covers all the aspects of government accountability responsibilities.