An Economic Evaluation of Selected river Basin DevelopmentA authorities in Nigeria.
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Date
1985
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Publisher
Obafemi Awolowo University,
Abstract
The main objective of this research work was to assess the economic performance of the River Basin Development Authorities (RBDAs) from the view point of project costs and incomes, agricultural production, cost recovery and project execution. Ogun-Oshun RBDA, Niger RBDA and Benin-Owena RBDA were selected for study. Data covering the period 1931 to 1983 were collected from their audited accounts, annual reports, official documents and from the detailed Fourth National Development Plan (1981-85) (FNDP) for these RDAs.
Performance indices were computed for capital and recurrent costs, volume of grants released to the RBDAS, and for agricultural production. Recurrent cost functions were estimated to evaluate the performance on cost recovery by the RBDAs. Agricultural production and the rate of project execution by the RBDAs were found to fall far below the anticipations of the FNDP. The RBDAs placed a greater emphasis (in financial terms) on capital development than agricultural production and cost recovery was infeasible at that level of production. Recurrent expenditure tended to exceed the FNDP projections, with personal emoluments accounting for up to 40 percent of the total recurrent expenditure: Government subventions accounted for 70 - 96 percent of the total RBDA income.
It was recommended that the volume of grants released to the RBDAs be increased, and that alternative sources of project finance be considered. An immediate review of the RBDA projects was
Description
100P
Keywords
Economic, Evaluation, River, Expenditure