Acta Universitatis Danubius. Administratio, Vol 11, No 2 (2019)

Abstract

The study focuses on the link between local government fiscal autonomy and rural development, the effect of local government fiscal autonomy on rural development and to investigate the extent at which poor capital funding has affected the rate of rural development; empirical evidences from Yewa South and Ifo local government areas of Ogun State. The research utilized both primary and secondary data. The primary data were collected through questionnaire from a sample of 130 staff out of the total population of the staff of the 2 local governments. The respondents were selected using stratified random sampling technique in which the total number of staff in each local government was put into consideration before final selection using simple random sampling. The paper employed descriptive statistics using ordinary least square in SPSS to analyze the hypotheses in order to achieve the objectives of the study. The study finds out that there is a negative effect of poor capital funding on the lives of the local people with the P-values <5% significant level. Hence, the study concludes that local governments need financial autonomy to perform their civic responsibilities of improving the standard of living and rural development of the people at the grassroots. Therefore, the study recommended that federal and state government should stop undue interference in the finances of local government councils so that yearly statutory allocations to them can be used for developmental projects.