An Assessment of Factors Affecting Budget and Expenditure Management in Government Organizations: A Case Study of Batu Municipality

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to examine and point out factors affecting the efficient allocation and utilization of budget and effective management of expenditure in Batu Municipality. Owing these objective this study tries to answer three important questions:  How efficient the municipality in allocating resource to different activities meet budget and expected expenditure (recurrent and capital) objectives? How efficient and effective the municipality is in budget utilization and expenditure management? What are the factors that affect the municipality's budget utilization and expenditure management? With these objectives, the descriptive research method was employed.  data was gathered through questionnaire, face-to-face-interview FGD and from review of both published and unpublished data sources. The information collected through from 40 workers stratified into four strata and, interview & FGD conducted with officials and residents of Batu town selected purposively. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected from primary and secondary data sources and analyzed using Excel Micro-software packages like percentages, ratios, tables, graphs and diagrams.

After thorough analysis, the paper finds out the factors that affect budget and expenditure management of Batu Municipality such as; the existence of lack competency, lack commitments and existence of skill gap and rent-seeking behavior by the employees and leaders; absence of pubic participation in planning and budgeting, existence of time gaps between budget receipt and actual expenditure and inefficient budget allocation and utilization among functions. To enhance the efficiency of budget utilization and the effectiveness of expenditure management of Batu Municipality should increase the resource to be allotted for developmental project, encourage citizen participation in planning and resource allocation, improve leadership qualities and employee's commitment, and establish a system to fight against rent-seeking behavior of employees. Finally, the paper addressed the need for improving the budget utilization and expenditure management, based on findings, recommendations to Batu Municipality and its workers together with the concerned government bodies, and suggestions for other researchers are forwarded.