A Systematic Review of Budgeting and Budgetary Control in Government Owned Organizations

Abstract

Budgeting and budgetary control entails the establishment of goals by the management of an organization and designing a process which serves as a framework within which an organization effectively articulates overall planned activities. The quantification of these planned activities in financial terms is known as budgeting, while the establishment of an effective mechanism to guarantee desired result is known as budgetary control. This study therefore seeks to undertake a systematic review of budgeting and budgetary control in Government owned organizations and given the importance of the foregoing, attention was focused on the Nigerian National petroleum Cooperation (NNPC). To achieve the objective of the study, primary data were obtained through the use of a well structured questionnaire administered to the respondents, while the secondary data were obtained from the annual financial statements, files, memos, tax laws and gazette of the NNPC. The findings revealed that a necessary and sufficient condition for achieving effective budgeting and budgetary control is the involvement of all relevant stakeholders in the preparation of the budget, given the established processes in government circles, while emphasizing a deliberate and faithful implementation, by all responsible officers. This rests on the existence of a mental picture of the present state of affairs, vis-à-vis the future expected state of affairs, within the organization. It therefore recommended that since budgeting and budgetary control contributes to management efficiency and high productivity of an organization, all relevant stakeholders must be involved in the budget process, from preparation to implementation, in other to guarantee overall goal attainment.

Keywords: Budgeting, Budgetary Control, Effective, Efficient, Management, Performance.