ABSTRACT

 In Nigeria, there is increasing government expenditure and budgetary allocations while there seem to be relatively diminishing standard of living. And the dwindling and scarce ii attire of resources here makes it a matter of urgency to explore ways of achieving economy, efficiency and effectiveness in every public expenditure. This is what value-for-money auditing hopes to achieve. However, the rate of adoption of the concept of value-for-money auditing appears to be relatively slow in Nigeria particularly in the public sector. This could be due to some latent problems, some of which, we have discovered in this work. Opinion survey was carried out while the budgeted and actual capital expenditures of the sanipled local government areas for 10 year between 1999-2008 were collected. Also collected were costs of purchase of certain items by 1/ic public sector anui costs of similar items  wli cmi p urcli used bp lb e private sector establishment. Descriptive analysis and t-statistics were used ii, the analyses and it was discovered i/mat, contrary to a priori expectations, the audit and accounting staff of the public sector know a great deal about value for money auditing (VFMA) yet its implementation is at a low ebb having a nzean of 1.21. Sonic of I/ic causes of this include bribery amid corruption, poor record keeping practice, political and executive influences, use of incompetent and unskilled staff and others. It was also established iii at public projects were not cost effective amid that public budgets were not significantly implemented. It was lb cmi recomniended lii at an in dependent consultant be emigaged to design and muon itor a water-fig/it internal control system for public establishments and that employment should be based on merit while profession alis,n should be encouraged iii the public sector. Furl/icr, genuine competition s/i ould be encouraged amid contracts should be awarded based on "lowest responsible bid" instead of "lowest bid" and budgets must reflect tile conditions expected to prevail during its implementation and the public lutist be carried along iii 1/ic btidgetim'ig process of 1/ic public sector particularly (IS it concermis capital expenditures on public goods.