Due Process and Budget Implementation: An Evaluation of Nigerian Public Sector Auditing

Abstract

Government responsibilities in Nigeria have enlarged over the years so much that it is becoming very burdensome and impossible for government to manage its affairs effectively. One of the reasons why government engages in budgeting is scarcity of resources which always leads to claims and demands outweighing the resources to satisfy them.  The issue of budget implementation has been hampered by lack of complex redundancy which manifested itself in various forms. Once a government prepares a budget, the ideal thing is to implement it for optimal benefits to the stakeholders, but, this appears not to be the case.  As good as our budget is in terms of preparation and contents; it is kept in shelves after approval as a historical book and never consulted. It is against this background that government and auditors introduce new measures and strategies aimed at checking wasteful expenditures and keeping budget in line with global practice.  The objective of the paper therefore is to examine few of these measures and to determine their implications on budget implementation. The paper concluded that all the new audit trends are indispensable for the efficiency and effectiveness of budget performance. However, the paper recommended the need to enact enabling laws that will ensure the workability of these new audit concepts.