E-transparency and government budgetary corruption: A social marketing and transformation case from Nigeria

Abstract

This article shows how Information and Communication Technology (ICT), incorporating social media, can lead to accountability and transparency in a government's budget. Specifically, it examined how a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) used ICT to foster citizenship engagement in the Nigerian government budgetary process. The article, using abductive reasoning, presents four citizen empowerment stages and four social marketing transition stages through which government budget transparency can be improved and corruption reduced. A model was also inferred that can help lessen the exclusivity around the government budget to encourage dialog and openness around the government budget in similar contexts. Furthermore, this article shows that the social transformative role for NGOs using ICT to increase government budget transparency and reduce corruption is a process that happens over time.