AUDIT COMMITTEE’S ATTRIBUTES AND QUALITY OF FINANCIAL REPORTING ON LISTED CONSUMER GOODS FIRMS IN NIGERIA

Abstract

Confidence of the community in general and the investment community in particular in the accuracy of the Nigerian companies' financial reports has decreased due to the repeated documentation of accounting manipulations in financial statements. This has led to business takeovers and collapse. The prevalence of takeovers and or collapse has caused significant concern about how well corporate governance procedures guarantee the preparation and disclosure of more effective accounting records. Therefore, this study examined the effects of audit committees’ attributes on the quality of financial reporting of listed consumer goods firms in Nigeria. The data for the study was obtained from the annual reports of the sample of sixteen consumer goods firms listed for the period 2009 to 2022. The data was analyzed using fixed effect regression analysis after conducting the Hausman test and the Breusch-Pagan test. The study found that audit committees independence (ACI), audit committees’ size (ACS), and shareholders involvement in the committees (SIAC) have a considerable tendency to enhance the standard of published financial information of Nigerian consumer goods businesses that are listed. The study concluded that the audit committee affects the quality of the financial statements of listed consumer goods companies in Nigeria. To maintain an effective oversight function and foster a positive environment for the legally required audit that promotes a reliable and unbiased perspective of the financial information, this study proposed that the governing board of executives guarantee the nomination of appropriate audit committee members who have adequate financial skills, including shareholders.

Keywords

• Audit Committee
• Discretionary Accrual Model
• Earning Management
• Financial Reporting Quality