ABSTRACT
Economic boom-and-bust cycles are familiar to countries across the globe and show no signs of disappearing any time in the future. The chapter describes a more complex narrative, one whose difference opens counternarrative ways of looking at the very real problems governments have in budgeting in many developing countries. The early work of Naomi Caiden and Aaron Wildavsky suggests that increasing a country’s resources should improve the budgetary capacity of its government. The chapter examines the budgetary process of the federal government of Nigeria during and after the 1970s oil price fluctuations. Excerpts from summaries of interviews held with Ghanaian officials toward the end of 1970 capture a sense of the constant remaking of the national budget during the first three changes in government. The government expenditure situation worsened further in the 1982–83 financial year, with expenditure cuts and a “budget freeze” instituted by Treasury during that year.
