AN EVALUATION OF AUDITING IN GOVERNMENT ESTABLISHMENTS

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1   BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

The ancient Greek and Romans are reported to have developed a system accounting records. It was the Greek who first used the word Audit which means to hear. This is the origin of Audit meaning some examination of account kept by others.

The join stock companies act 1884 was the legislation in Britain to require all incorporated business to have their annual financial statement examined by an auditor. The auditors were required to state whether the account showed a true and correct view of the state of affairs of the company.

The expectation of the shareholder at this time was that auditors should detect fraud and error earlier cases of low reinforced this view. The heavy emphasis on detection of fraud and error continued into the mid 20^th century until it becomes regarded as management responsibility to prevent and detect fraud and error.

The early auditor were in many cases non-accountant but it was the companies act 1990 that required the auditors to be independent and it was not until the 1984 companies act that their require be professionally qualified.

The modern auditing is a complex operation calling in wide variety of skill ranging from auditing and financial accounting knowledge to statistics computing and communications skill.

During the colonization of the country, British colonialist brought auditing as a profession to Nigeria. In an attempt to manage the government resources efficiently and effectively the British through it was necessary to set up regional audit office in the four regions created by them namely, Western, Northern and Midwestern region with headquarter in each region capital.

In the light of the above introduction, it is pertinent to give the definition of “Auditing” According to A.O. Aiyedogun study manual is an independent examination of an expression of opinion of the financial statement of any entity, whether profit oriented or not, and irrespective of its size by an appointed auditor in pursuance relevant statutory obligation.

Taylor R. Glessen defined auditing as a system or process of obtaining and evaluating evidence regarding assertion about economic actions and event to confirm the degree of correspondence between those assertion and established criteria and communication of the result interest users.

1.2   STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

It is pertinent to first of all take a look at the sword auditing before evaluating the effective aspect of it. Precisely, an auditing is a n independent examination of an expression of opinion of the financial statement of the entity, whether profit oriented or not and irrespective of size by an appointed auditors in pursuance of that appointment and incompliance with any relevant statutory obligation.

For an audit to be effective in an establishment there is the need for an internal audit as a tool for ensuring effective working of the internal control system. Internal audit is a management controls which function by measuring and evaluating the effective of other controls. Ironically, most government organization though have an existing internal control but its lacks credibility.

This project therefore intends to take a look at the auditing objectives of University of Ilorin with a view to taking a look at it credibility, by ensuring that the voucher being audited is in line with the set policies or regulations of the university and that the basic input requirement are fully attached to the voucher.

Not only that the studies tries to find out whether or not certain audit objectively existed in the establishment this includes completeness, which ensure all account balance are included, accuracy which ensures that transaction are mathematically accurate and based on the correct period etc.

1.3   OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

    The objective of the research work will be to:

1. Verify the roles being played by an auditor in carrying out effective auditing in higher area of jurisdictions.
2. Examine critically hoe effective is the system adopted.
3. Evaluate the adequate of the system.
4. Examine the auditor’s auditing procedures as to the way duties are carried out to the laid down rules and regulation.
5. Examine the problems limiting against the effective performance of the auditor’s role and to give recommendation where necessary.

1.4   SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The significance of the study is as follows:

• It helps the government establishment in the presentation of financial statement for a period of time to give a true and fair view.
• It helps the people more about the importance effective auditing in the government establishment.
• It educate the government workers on how to avoid any irregularities e.g. fraud, manipulation of figures and foreign.
• To offer a suggest ways in which effective auditing need to be done in any government establishment.
• And finally to identify the factors that hinder effective auditing in government establishment.