Professionals’ Perception of Audit Practices in Public Sector: A Case Study of Osun and Ogun States of South-Western Nigeria (Published)
The study examined perception of accounting professionals regarding public sector audit practices. Specifically, it aims at identifying generally accepted audit principles and also determine the pattern of government audit practices in Osun and Ogun states of Nigeria. Despite the introduction of 1999 Constitution as amended in Nigeria and various pronouncements on audit practice in the Nigerian Public Sector by regulatory bodies, the issue of corruption, misappropriation and embezzlement in Nigeria public sector has been on the increase. This study assessed the level of state government compliance and adherence to the Generally Accepted Auditing Practice (GAAP) of Osun and Ogun states in South Western part of Nigeria and also identified the factors that influence compliance of state audit practice to standards in the selected states. Data for the study was sourced through administration of 150 pretested structured questionnaire purposively administered to professional Accountants in the states audit service of Osun and Ogun state of Nigeria. Both descriptive and inferential statistics such as tables, graph, percentages, ANOVA and regression analysis were used to assess the level of compliance and also identify factors that influence such. The study revealed that the level of practice to audit standards compliance by Osun and Ogun states public is significantly positive while political influence was identified as one of the major factors among others that influence level of audit practice with standards in the selected states. The study concluded that state audit practice complied with standards but were highly influenced by politics with far reaching implications on the quality of financial reporting of the state public sectors. Therefore, the study recommend that state government public sector should embrace and encourage best audit practice compliance that will help in reducing the level of corruption and embezzlement in Nigeria public sectors.
Keywords: And Government Audit., Audit Practitioners, Auditing Principles, Influence