Factors Affecting Audit Committee Quality in Nigeria

The purpose of this paper is to identify factors that affect audit committee quality in Nigeria. A hand administered questionnaire survey of 52 accounting professionals was undertaken. Descriptive statistics were used to determine the most common factors. Independent t-tests were used to determine whether there were any significant differences in the perceptions of the factors according to gender, job type and experience. The questionnaire findings, which include some factors peculiar to Nigeria, suggest that many factors affect audit committee quality. These include financial literacy of members of the committee, ability of members to ask relevant questions, provision of remuneration to members of the committee, committee’s willingness to periodically evaluate itself, tenure of members to be pegged at a minimum of 3 years and provision of regular training for members. The findings uphold the Nigerian Security and Exchange Commission recommendation that an audit committee should have at least one financial expert in the team. The findings of this study are of particular relevance to the Nigerian regulatory authorities especially the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) as it is set to fashion out a new mandatory corporate governance code for establishments under its purview.