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The Audit committee is responsible for the oversight of the quality and integrity of
the organizations accounting and reporting practices, controls and financial
statements, legal and regulatory compliance, the auditors’ qualifications and
independence.
The specific objectives of the study was to examine the members composition of
audit committee of the Ministry of industry and trade, knowledge of members on
financial matters and enhancing accountability on public funds, how the functions of
the audit committee of the ministry being exercised to enhance accountability and the
challenges facing audit committee in an organization.
The categories of respondents were the senior members who are the heads of
departments and audit committee members of the Ministry, senior staffs who are not
audit committee members and the staffs of internal audit within the Ministry. Data
collection methods included personal interviews, questionnaires, observations and
documentary review. The data collected was analyzed statistically by using
descriptive statistical method such as frequency tables and measures of average.
The study revealed that the composition of the audit committee is good although the
team lack independence on its operations. Also most of members of the team do not
have sufficient knowledge on financial matters which weaken the performance of the
committee. The committee also lacks enough institutional supports, sufficient budget
and the updated audit committee charter.
The study recommends several measures based on observed and analyzed findings
from the study. These include the audit committee to be composed of executives
from outside the ministry and non executive members, the committee should have an
up dated audit committee charter, members should have enough knowledge on
financial matters and the need to restructure audit committee, restate its roles,
responsibilities and its mandatory to make it cope with current requirements and
overcome number of prevailing challenges. Finally, the researcher recommends
further research to be conducted on assessment to establish the role of audit
committees on the public financial management among government ministries in
Tanzania. |
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