The capacity of any level of government within a federal structure to initiate
and strengthen public service delivery in any given economy is often hinged on the
generation of adequate revenue. The paper noted that international development
institutions provide more facilities for Nigerians than their government. It was also
observed that poor tax administration, poor legal basis, tax evasion and tax avoidance
amongst others acted as constraints to revenue generation, and that these problems
further foster other factors which hinder efficient service delivery. Factors identified as
constraints to efficient service delivery include; mismatch of revenue generation
sources and assigned expenditure at the sub-national levels of government, lopsided
revenue allocation formula, defective institutional guidelines, corruption and political
patronage and inadequate tracking of the process of public expenditure. In order to
facilitate adequate revenue generation for efficient service delivery the paper called for
a holistic budgeting and reforms of financial management, and in addition, relevant
staff training and orientation towards best practices in revenue generation and
expenditure processing should be engineered and adopted in the country.