INTRODUCTION
Budget is a financial programme of action designed to guide the future operations of an organization. According to Nwosu (1981)“ a budget is financial plan which is intended to provide guide for future events and behavior, in a more general sense, budgeting is concerned with the translation of financial resources, into human purpose”. It may be conceptualized as a series of goals and price tag attached.
Wikipedia (2013), the budget of a government is a summary or plan of the intended revenues and expenditures of that government. There are three types of government budget;
(Encyclopedic dictionary of public Administration, online).
According to Omebogu, the inherent values or benefits in budgeting have not been fully drawn by our country in that the nation is still socio-economically backward. For instance the battle against poverty has not actually started in our rural communities and are in deplorable shape, the health situation has not improved, our education policy has not be implemented (free education), the standard of living of the average Nigeria is nothing to write home about, to mention but a few.
All these are sufficient indications that out national budgets all this years leave much to be desired than to achieved; because if the budgets are appropriately made and implemented all this factors will be successfully achieved.
It was observed by researchers that the major problems of budgeting in the public institutions is that most public officials have been unable to make calculation needed for substantial changes in the programmes of their respective department’s policies.
Some forms of budgeting system have not been able to serve as adequate basis for decision making at each level of management and they have not helped the management to control and appraise performance of various programmes, project activities and schemes.
1.1 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
Budget has now been reduced to mere yearly rituals. Early in the year so much noise is made concerning the budget, hopes of the people are raised for a better tomorrow but soon nothing will be heard about the implemented budget presented. Yet another year, a similar thing happens. (Ogudele 1996).
According to Nwoko (2001) a huge sum of money has been spent outside budgetary allocations over the years, yet budgeting policies are not implemented. For instance in Nigeria to be prescribed, since after their independence in 1960, budget has been made to develop agriculture which was their centre of trade back in 1940’s. They discovered oil but till date, budget has been insignificantly implemented. In the Nigeria polity, though good budget might be made but are very poorly implemented.
Other causes of problems of budgeting include, lack of adequate knowledge to prepare and implement budget, laxity by the ministry in the implementation of budget, mismanagement of fund, insufficient fund to carryout budget activities, lack of monitoring of the activities of budget implementation. This is evident in the unprofessional and shabby ways by which budget is carried out in the ministry. Budget however, is seen as a routine activity or action that needs no innovation or professionalism. Be that as it may, this syndrome affects budgeting in the ministry.
The above problems which are obvious, spurred the researcher into carrying out an investigations on what could be adopted in order to enhance the preparation of budget and it implementation so that it’s objectives could be achieved, Enugu State Ministry of works and Housing, Enugu.
1.3 OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
The research has been designed to look into budgeting in the management of public institution using the ministry of works and housing as a case study.
In more specific terms, the objectives of the study include:
1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
The following research questions have been drawn as a guide to the study
1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
This study has a lot of significance in the sense that it represents a symbol of academic achievement as having contributed to the already record of research in management science. The study shall be useful to the colleagues of the researcher and the entire students in the field of the study in future.
The research shall be relevant in Public Administration as a whole and budget experts in various ministries and department as it shall assist them in carrying out their budgeting duties. The policy makers shall derive immense benefit from the study as it shall serve as a guide to them.
1.6 SCOPE OF THE STUDY
The scope of the study on budgeting in the management of public Institution is narrowed down to Enugu State ministry of works and housing.
Furthermore, this study was centered on the effectiveness as well as the problems of budgeting in the management of public institutions.
1.7 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
The researcher has encountered so many difficulties in the course of the work. Some of them have been discussed below:
Against this background most of the workers were afraid to disclose some relevant information to the researcher as some of the staff claimed that disclosing certain information to the researcher will be an offence to the ministry.
Again, a few of the respondents were not willing to fill the questionnaire, while some of the respondents declined returning their filled questionnaires.
Time constraint was another factor, for a well thorough job, more time would have being allowed to carryout the project because the researcher have to read for her exams, do some jobs to be paid to enable her carryout the financial activities needed by the project as well as carryout other personal duties.
Insufficient fund, a lot of money was needed to pay transport fares to and from the ministry of works and housing, Enugu, pay for the production of the questionnaire, pay for the printing and binding of the project as well as the reprint of the corrected versions.
Sometimes, when the researcher tries to browse out some needed information from the net, internet does not provide such information due to bad communication network. This is to mention but a few.
1.8 DEFINITION OF TERMS