Template-type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: James Alm 
Author-Email: jalm@gsu.edu
Author-Homepage: http://aysps.gsu.edu/AlmJ.html
Author-Workplace-Name: Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University
Author-Workplace-Homepage: http://aysps.gsu.edu/index.html
Author-Name: Jameson Boex
Author-Email: 
Author-Homepage: 
Author-Workplace-Name: 
Author-Workplace-Homepage:
Title: An Overview of Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations and Subnational Public Finance 
       in Nigeria 
Abstract:Fiscal decentralization reform, the reform of fiscal relations between different 
 levels of government, is an important fiscal policy issue in many African countries. While
 for many African nations the decentralized delivery of government goods and services is a 
 relatively new concept, the issue of intergovernmental fiscal relations has been a constant
 and important fiscal policy consideration in Nigeria since the country's independence in 1960.
 Despite Nigeria's long history with a federal government structure, until recently it was 
 hard to truly consider Nigeria as an effectively decentralized country. For much of the 
 country's history, successive military regimes dismissed elected officials and legislative 
 bodies at all levels of government and replaced them with military appointees; since under
 military rule subnational governments in Nigeria were accountable to the country's 
 military authorities rather than to state or local electorates, we cannot properly 
 speak of political and fiscal decentralization during this period. Nonetheless, in many 
 respects Nigeria's basic decentralized federal administrative structure was maintained 
 by successive military regimes. Under military rule, state and local governments continued 
 to operate as distinct government units, provide important government services, collecting
 own source revenues and receiving intergovernmental transfers, albeit at the direction of
 military governors and appointed local executives rather than at the discretion of the 
 local electorate. However, with the return of civilian rule to Nigeria in 1999, which
 entailed the adoption of a new constitution and the election of government officials
 and legislative assemblies at all levels of government, Nigeria instantaneously became 
 one of the most decentralized countries in Africa.To this effect, this paper presents a
 broad overview of intergovernmental fiscal relations in Nigeria. 
 This paper follows the main conceptual building blocks or pillars of fiscal 
 decentralization and subnational publc finance. After a brief overview of Nigeria's 
 federal system, Section 2 discusses the assignment of functional responsibilities in
 Nigeria's federal system. Section 3 presents an analysis of revenue assignments, 
 considering what revenue sources are available to each level of government. Section 4 
 looks at the design and implementation of Nigeria's system of intergovernmental transfers.
 Section 5 considers subnational fiscal management issues, including the importance of 
 capital "development" budgets in the Nigerian budget process. Finally, Section 6 considers
 the role and status of local governments and state-local government relations.
Keywords: Nigeria, public finance, intergovernmental, fiscal decentralization
Length: 62 pages
Creation-Date: 2002-01-01
File-URL:http://icepp.gsu.edu/files/2015/03/ispwp0201.pdf
File-Format:Application/PDF
Handle: RePEc:ays:ispwps:paper0201