Effectiveness of Public Financial Management Reforms on Budget Performance in Nigeria

Nigeria's fiscal landscape has undergone substantial transformation since 2015, marked by the introduction of the Treasury Single Account (TSA), Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS), and Government Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS). Yet despite these high-profile reforms, questions persist about their actual impact on budget performance, given demographic shifts, macroeconomic volatility, institutional fragility, global economic pressures, and infrastructural deficits. This study examines the effectiveness of public financial management (PFM) reforms on budget performance across Nigeria's federal ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs) using cross-sectional regression analysis. Drawing on primary data collected from 287 MDAs and secondary macroeconomic indicators spanning 2015–2024, we find that PFM reforms exert a positive and statistically significant effect on budget execution efficiency, though this relationship is moderated by institutional capacity constraints and macroeconomic instability. The Treasury Single Account demonstrates the strongest marginal impact (β = 0.342, p < 0.01), while IPPIS implementation shows diminishing returns in agencies with high staff turnover. Control variables reveal that demographic factors—specifically, the educational attainment of financial officers—amplify the effectiveness of reform, whereas inflation above 25% erodes fiscal gains. Institutional factors, particularly audit independence and intergovernmental coordination, prove more influential than global commodity price fluctuations in determining budget outcomes. These findings challenge the conventional narrative that PFM reforms operate in institutional vacuums and suggest that reform sequencing must prioritize capacity building alongside technical system deployment. The study contributes to PFM literature by integrating multi-dimensional control variables often omitted in developing country studies and provides actionable recommendations for reform calibration in resource-constrained environments.