Governance Factors and Mismanagement of Public Project Funds in Nigeria: A Case Study of Ondo State

Abstract

This paper evaluates the governance factors that are responsible to the mismanagement of public project funds in Nigeria. Governance factors are variables that influence the effective usage of project funds to achieve project delivery while public projects relate to works done by the government to meet public interest. The target population for this study include ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) in the public sector in Ondo State comprising a total number of seventy-four (74) establishments in the state. Primary and secondary data were collected. Principal component analysis method and explorative factor analysis were combined to extract the five relevant governance factors that impact public project delivery in the study area. Findings reveal that execution of public projects could be fettered with different types of corrupt practices such as bribery, favour-to-favour, nepotism, percentage sharing and contract inflation in the study area; however, weaknesses and lapses were observed in bureaucracy, accountability and due process. Therefore, the study suggests among others, that there should be a political will to redress corruption dilemma, tighten accountability, due process and bureaucratic control in project environment.