CHAPTHER ONE

1.1 BACKGROUND OF STUDY

One of the biggest challenges for oil-producing countries is how to use its oil wealth strategically to promote sustainable growth, for example, in Nigeria, the massive increase in oil revenue as an aftermath of the Middle-East war of 1973 created unprecedented, unexpected and unplanned wealth for Nigeria. Then began the dramatic shift of policies from a holistic approach to benchmarking them against the state of the oil sector. Now, in order to make the business environment conducive for new investments, the government began investing the newfound wealth in socio-economic infrastructure across the country, especially in the urban areas (Adedipe, 2007). Over the past three decades, gulf cooperation council (GCC) countries have generally followed procyclical fiscal policies to changes in oil revenue. Following the sharp increase in global oil prices in the 1970s and early 1980s, government spending in all these countries rose as fast as oil revenue through a massive public investment program in infrastructure, fiscal incentives to develop the industrial sector, and the adoption of a generous welfare system.

Notwithstanding the increase in spending, sizable overall fiscal surpluses were recorded in all GCC countries during those years, leading to a sharp accumulation of official asset. The existence of large foreign official assets facilitated a relatively low level of adjustment in spending in the period 1980-86, when crude oil prices declined significantly. Concerns for sustaining domestic demand in order to stave off a sharp reduction in non-oil growth has usually militated against significant fiscal adjustment in the face of falling oil prices in GCC countries. Spending was only cut by the equivalent to about half the fall in total revenue in Saudi Arabia, 20 percent in the United Arab Emirates, and 10 percent in Qatar. Facilitated by the completion of major infrastructure investments, the cutbacks fell mostly on outlays for projects, while current expenditure rose in all these countries, except in Saudi Arabia. In Bahrain and Kuwait, spending continued to rise across the board. In contrast, in Oman, lower oil revenue was more than offset by higher investment income and fees and charges, leading to a further increase in expenditure in the period (Fasano, 2000).

According to Piana (2001), Public expenditure is the value of goods