ABSTRACT

This project work attempts to analyze the weakness and highlight the attendant implications on the financial statements of a local government in Nigeria. It cannot be overemphasized that the local governments in Nigeria have been facing the problem ofpresenting a financial statement that could succinctly reflect their true financial position. Thus the need to ensure proper public accountability especially at the local government level gave birth to this research work. The aim or objective of this work is to highlight the problems and prospects of local government accounting system in Nigeria using Bende local government in Abia state as a sampled local government.. Primary source of data and questionnaire was used as an instrument for data collection and also survey research design was adopted for this study. 85 numbers of workers were randomly sampled and stratfIed among members of staff in the local government out of 108 population sample. 4 research questions and 2 hypotheses tested at 5% level of significance guided the study. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) statistics was used to test the hypotheses. The researcher was able to find the following: that lack of planning and commitments affects the accounting system of the local government area; that local government areas are not exploiting all the local government revenue resources very well. That inadequate competent staff affects the management of finance despite appraisal made by accounting system of a local government. The researcher therefore recommends that the necessary incentives required by staff should be given to them in other to encourage and motivate them to put up their best in the service; independent accounting, auditing and supervisory bodies should be employed for the local government finance. More sources of revenue generation should be exploited. The researcher concludes that the lapses in the accounting system of a local government could be traced to their inability to employ professional accountant which then results to improper planning.