FACTORS AFFECTING BUDGET UTILIZATION IN PUBLIC SECTORS: IN THE CASE OF HAWASSA CITY ADMINISTRATION, SIDAMA, ETHIOPIA

The government has to give great attention to budget utilization in order to bring desired<br> economy and to satisfy public need and wants, this study aimed to empirically investigate the<br> possible determinant factors of budget utilization in Hawassa City administration Public sectors.<br> The selected factors are, Government Policy, Communication, Employees Related factors, Usage<br> of Technology, Budget monitoring. A theoretical framework was used as a guideline to test the<br> effect of these variables on budget utilization from the relevant literatures. Casual and relational<br> research approach was employed. Thus, inferential statistical methods like correlation analysis<br> was used to assess the relationship between the identified factors and budget utilization, multiple<br> linear regression analysis also employed to examine the influence of the factors on Budget<br> Utilization by using primary data collected through five scale likert questionnaire. Data were<br> collected from 167 respondents from out of 169 sample of the study. Besides, descriptive<br> statistical tools like mean and standard deviation are used to illustrate the demographic<br> characteristics of the respondents and to assess the opinions of respondents towards the factors<br> from data collected through questionnaire and the study revealed that the respondents feel<br> differently for each factor. Government Policy, Communication, Employees Related factors,<br> Usage of Technology, Budget monitoring and dependent variable namely; Budget utilization are<br> with average mean of 2.83, 3.76, 3.28, 2.85, 2.64, and 3.71respectively. Based on the findings of<br> the study, among determinate factors of three of them (Government policy, effective<br> communication and Employee related factors) have a positive correlation with budget utilization<br> and the remaining two (Usage of technology and effective monitoring and evaluation) did not<br> have significant correlation with Budget utilization in the study area. The multiple linear<br> regression analysis result revealed that four explanatory variables (Government Policy,<br> Communication, Employees Related factors, and Budget monitoring and evaluation) have a<br> significant effect on Budget utilization practices in the study area. The results of multiple linear<br> regressions of the five determinant variables, the result shows that a value of R square is .759<br> which implies that 75.9 percent variation was caused by the considered independent variables.<br> Based on the findings, the researcher forwarded valuable recommendations for the concerned<br> bodies to give due attention on government policies, Communication aspects, Employees related<br> factors and to strengthen the budget monitoring and evaluation practices at higher standards.