Knowledge of Financial Management Guidelines as a Correlate to Store Custody, Store Control, and Financial Accountability in Local Government Administration in Anambra State, Nigeria

Abstract

The Local government system in Nigeria is facing a lot of problems. The most disturbing of these problems is that the local governments cannot engage in any development project due to several factors. One of such factors that is of interest to this paper is the question of financial management and the knowledge of the guidelines for financial management. This is why this study assessed the extent to which the knowledge of financial management guidelines can be considered as a correlate to financial accountability in Anambra state local government. Three hypotheses were proposed and tested. A quantitative research design was used for the study. The population for the study was made up of 9,881 staff working in the 21 local governments in the study area. The proportional stratified sampling technique was used to select six out of these 21 local governments. From a total of 2,803 staff working in the sampled local governments, 280 were sampled using purposive random sampling. Two instruments were developed for the study, namely, a questionnaire containing structured and unstructured items, and an interview guide. From the 280 staff sampled, four senior staff from each of the six local governments were interviewed. A total of 24 senior staff were interviewed while the remaining 256 staff responded to questionnaire items to generate data for this study. Data collected from the responses to the structured questionnaire were coded into the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (version 16). The remaining data from the questionnaire, and the whole of the interview responses, were subjected to content analysis to identify emerging themes. The three hypotheses were tested at the significance level of 0.05 using Pearson Product Moments Correlation Coefficient (r). The study revealed the following: (a) the stores officers’ adherence to the guidelines in the Financial Memoranda is not dependent on their knowledge of these guidelines (r = -0.488); (b) the loss of funds observed in stores custody in Anambra state local governments is significantly related to non-adherence to the instructions and guidelines in the financial memoranda (r = 0.354); and (c) the level of adherence to the guidelines in the financial memoranda is positively related to the level of accountability of officers charged with stores in Anambra state local governments (r = 0.350).

Keywords: Financial Management, Store Custody, Store Control, Financial Accountability, Local Government Administration, Nigeria