Historicising the budgetary problems of Ghana and Nigeria under Democratic Governance, 1999 – 2010: Common lessons in Fiscal Management

Abstract

The 1990s were periods in the history of Africa that many states on the continent which had hitherto been governed by military dictatorships began to embrace democracy. Under the military dictatorship and their similar civilian variants, the economies of these states had witnessed utter ruination partly as a result of IMF or World Bank advised economic restructuring policies and partly because of mismanagement by the dictators. The result was massive unemployment, fiscal collapse of the revenue-expenditure balance and huge debts overhang. Ghana and Nigeria, both West African states, were caught in the web of these failed economic policies, the most negative consequence of which was budgetary failures in the areas of revenue-expenditure balance, deficit financing, huge external indebtedness and massive poverty. Relying on a combination of data obtained on the fiscal operations of both countries as derived from their respective central banks, finance ministries and Annual Appropriation Acts as passed by their parliaments, this paper adopts historical and comparative methods of interrogation to analyse the budgetary performances of these two countries from 1999 to 2010 by presenting a history of their budgetary problems and challenges with respect to how they applied socio-economic policies in addressing their revenues and expenditure activities.