AUDIT COMMITTEE CHARACTERISTICS AND AUDIT QUALITY OF QUOTED DEPOSIT MONEY BANKS IN NIGERIA
Musa, Ahmed Mohammed Ph.D, Usman, Buhari Agyo and Ibrahim Ahmadu
Volume 11 Issue 1
Abstract
This study examined the effect of audit committee characteristics on audit quality of quoted deposit money banks (DMBs) in Nigeria. Specifically, the study examined effects of audit committee size and audit committee financial expertise on audit quality. The study adopted ex-post facto research design. The population of this study comprised all the 13 Deposit money banks (DMBs) quoted on the Nigerian Exchange Group as at 31st December, 2023. Because the population is small and as such all of the population were used as sample size of the study. The data were collected from the annual reports of the sampled deposit money banks for a period of ten (10) years (2014 to 2023). This study measured audit quality using discretionary accruals and controlled for exogenous factors using firm size and leverage. Descriptive statistics and multiple regression were employed for analysis. According to the result audit committee financial expertise has significant and positive effect on audit quality while audit committee size has insignificant and negative effect on audit quality of quoted deposit money banks in Nigeria. The study recommends that audit committee characteristics have significant positive associations on audit quality. The study finally recommended that the Nigerian corporate governance code should consider members of the committee with financial expertise because this will contribute to improving audit quality and consequently reduce information asymmetry, which not only clarifies the conflicts of interests between shareholders and management but also makes management more accountable. Keywords: Audit Committee, On Audit Quality, Deposit Money Banks, Financial Expertise And Nigeria
Download Paper