THE ROLE OF REVENUE GENERATION AND ITS IMPACT ON THE EFFECTIVE IMPLEMENTATION OF POLICIES AND PROGRAMMES

THE ROLE OF REVENUE GENERATION AND ITS IMPACT ON THE EFFECTIVE IMPLEMENTATION OF POLICIES AND PROGRAMMES

(A case study of Langtang North Local Government)

ABSTRACT

The project work is titled “The Role Of Revenue Generation And Its Impact On The Effective Implementation Of Policies And Programmes” (a case study of Langtang North Local Government) was carried out to examine the role of policies and programme on the effective implementation of revenue generation. The aim of this project is to highlight the problems of revenue generation and to suggest some possible ways of combating them. The general public has to be synthesized about the need to pay their tax regularly and staffs in charge of collections should be warned on how to collect the revenue effectively. The structured questionnaires were used and the data collected were subjected to simple percentage and chi-square; the result shows that, most of the revenue generated were not properly managed, most of it were lost through leakage i.e. fraud or misappropriation by the staffs carrying out thereby reducing the actual amount that has been generated. Therefore, there is a need to implement policies and programmes that will block staff excesses or their act of embezzlement and to increase their pays, thereby increasing their standard of living.

Chapter one

1. Introduction

Local government refers to a formof public administration which in a majority of contracts, exists as the lowest tier of administration within a given state, Local Government generally act within powers delegated to them by legislation or directives of the higher level.

The common names for local government entities include state, province, region, department, country, prefecture, district, city, township, town, borough, parish, municipality, shire and village.

There is no nation, country, or political organization that can do without some form of local government even in the primitive society there were source form of decentralization, decentralization or active division of power and delegated function.

Therefore, the local government is a system of administration that can be found at the grass root level i.e. local level be it cost, district or village lever exercised through elected or nominated representatives to provide basic necessities of life for the inhabitants of the particular sub-mention boundary and as provide by the law of the concerned state or nation, the above information is just to enable us understand the topic of discussion which is the revenue generation.

Since money is the source of everything within any organization, the local government must provide a meaningful ways of generating revenue at its council. Therefore means are drawn to generate more revenue to the local government, so revenue is an income in which government receive as a tax to its organization or council.

1.1      Historical background of Langtang North Local Government

Langtang North Local Government Area was crated on 27^th August, 1991 out of the defunct Langtang LGA.

Langtang North is located on longitude 890-300N, Latitude 9-90-300E, it is about 190km drive south of Jos, the state capital and bordered by Kanke and Kanam LGA to the North and Wase LGA is on the East, while Langtang South LGA is on the Southern border and Mikang, Qua-pan and Shendam LGAs from it’s western border. The local government was created under the leadership of General Ibrahim Babangida Administration of military era, in October, 1991.

The local government area covers an area of 2446 squares kilometer with a population size of 513,255 people being taroh; therefore of course, pockets of other settling tribes on the LGA who have found themselves in the area purely for commercial undertakings.

The climate of the LGA is tropically made up of two main seasons namely the rainy and dry seasons.

The rainy season begins from the month of May to October, while the dry season starts from November to April. The major physical features of the area include the famous Kwallah hills, Mabe hills, Jat rock and Lagan hills.

The major occupation of the Taroh people is agriculture. Most of the farmers are subsistence farmers who produce crops such as groundnut, guinea corn, millet, beans, cassava, rice, cottons among others for family consumption.

The Local Government Area is made up of basically four districts namely; Kuffen, Gazum, Pil0Gani and Bwarst districts.

A number of banks branches have been set-up in the area which include; Union Bank Nigeria Plc, Nigeria Agricultural and Rural Development Co-operative Bank (NARDCB), First Bank Plc and Micro Finance Bank.

The Taroh People are known for their rich cultural heritage and festivals, which are observed annually.

The provision of basic health services becomes pertinent thus, the Local Government is being serviced by Jos University Teaching Comprehensive Centre at Zanko and  the State Government Council operates about thirty (38) health centres spread throughout rural area. There are also about ten (10) privately and community owned clinics.

The Local Government Council operates seven (7) departments such as:

1. Finance and supplies department
2. Personnel management department
3. Social services department
4. Primary health care department
5. Agricultural and natural resources department
6. Works and housing department
7. Research planning and statistic department

1.2      Statement of the problem

The general concern over the seemingly slow development of the rural areas in Nigeria has created a doubt as to the relevance of Local Government, all areas of the state land. Inadequacy of funds for various developmental projects stands as the cause for these shortcomings despite the increasing revenue allocation from the Federal Account to the Local Government. And also, it has been discovered that, most of the revenue generated were not properly managed, most of it were lost through blockage i.e. fraud or misappropriation by the staffs carryout the jobs thereby reducing the actual amount that has been generated.

And they create ways of getting exercising and so many act of embezzlement. Also, the revenue collectors are not properly trained on to collect revenue effectively, the general public has to be synthesized about the need to pay their tax regularly.

These are some of the problems which the research work intend to tackle and solved.

1.3      The scope of the study

The study is designed to find out revenue generation and its impact on the effective implementation of policies and programmes. The study covers only a particular Local Government (Langtang North Local Government Council), the researchers intend to see how contemporary Local Government funds re being managed and handled in Langtang North Local Government Council.

1.4      Limitation of the study

These research work hampered by so many constraints, which affected the quality of the work. In the first place, the project was constraints by finance and time factor, and information from source would also be difficult to the respondent, something would definitely not turn out easy, which are the limitation factors to the quality of this research work.

1.5      Statement of hypothesis

No research work can be done without some basic assumptions which tend to be a guide or give a sense of direct to the topic outstand.

Hypothesis is a basic assumption in relation to subject to understudy which must be subject to proof, verification and test in other to ascertain the authenticity of such assumption, in view of the topic understudy.

H_o: Lack of effective revenue generation affects implementation of policies and programmes of Local Government.

H_i: Revenue has been the bedrock of Local Government administration to the extent that, it create an impact to the Local Government programmes and policies implementation.

1.6      Significance of the study

Local Government are potentially very important for Nigeria as they play a significant role in generating revenue  and encouraging civil involvement, as well as creating visible link between taxes and service delivery. The increasing cost of running government coupled with dividing revenue has left various Local governments in Nigeria with formulating strategies to improve the revenue available to the various tiers of government as specified in the Nigeria 1999 constitution, since 1970s till now, over 80% of the annual revenue of the three tiers of government comes from petroleum.

However, the serious decline in the price of oil in recent years has led to a decrease in the funds available for distribution to the Local Government. The need for Local Governments to generate adequate revenue from extreme urgency and importance, the need for underscores, the eagerness on the part of the Local Government to look for new sources of revenue or to become aggressive and innovative in the mode or to become aggressive from excitind sources.

It will be of a great pleasure for an individual handling this research work to know that revenue generation will be of a benefit to this case study in the sense that, it will increase the revenue allocation of the Local Government, which invariably means that the Local Government will have more funds in financing projects. It will also be a boost to the general public to know that funds generated through various means will enhance the growth and the worth of the economy in promulgating new policies that will positively affect the nation. Furthermore, it will be of a benefit to the predecessors, in the sense that, it will give the current employers the funds to promote or finalize unfinished project by the predecessors. The benefit also go down to the general public in attaining it’s economic growth and development and also meet up with the challenges of her expenditures in terms of enjoying the social amenities. That will be embark upon by the government.

1.7      Definition of terms

To guarantee a complete comprehensive report, there is need to define some terms for the clarity as you read through this work.

Revenue: Revenue is the amount of money that a company actually receives during a specific period, including discounts and deductions for returned merchandise. It is “top line” or “grass income” figure from which costs are subtracted to determine net income.

Revenue is calculated by multiplying the price at which goods or services are sold by the amount of money that is brought into company by its business activities.

Local Government: Local Government refers to a form of public administration which is a majority of contexts existing as the lowest tier of administration within a given state.

Local government as a concept derived from the term decentralization. The decentralization is the transfer of authority on a geographical basic, and decentralization is either through decentralization or devolution. Deconcentration refers to delegation of authority to unite the same ministry in order to decongest the ministry while under devolution the central government give legal power to sub-national units of government at grass root level which are legally constituted so in a federal structure, local government is the third tier of government after the federal and state government, local government is all about government at the local or grass root. It could be defined as the third tier of government in order word, it could be said to be as old as mankind, that is to say that, local government it may be said some people that represent local government is just like an old nine in a new bottle. Also is a claim of government function like provision of public parks like, pipe water, electricity, good road, hospitals etc. they are empowered to one may therefore be right to say that local government is equivalent to individual rule during colonial era.