EFFECTIVENESS OF THE ROLE OF INTERNAL AUDIT IN THE GHANA POLICE SERVICE

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ABSTRACT

Effective internal audit function in an organization has been argued out as one of the best way of curbing the menace of corporate scandals which resulted in the collapse of many corporate institutions in recent years. Internal audit department has been noted to be the custodian of internal control system that monitors and promote good governance system in an organization. The purpose of this study is to assess the effectiveness of the role of internal audit within the Ghana Police Service. It emphasized on how effective the internal audit function is being pursued in the Service. Hence the assessment of factors that influence internal audit effectiveness (IAE) in the Ghana Police Service. Data obtained from the internal audit department in the regional offices of the GPS, and multiple regression analysis used to analyze such data to determine the association between IAE and other five principal factors. The correlation and regression analysis of these factors revealed that Competence and staff Size are positively associated with internal audit effectiveness at 5% significance level respectively. The other variables such as Relationship with external auditors, Ghana Police Council support and Independence of internal audit, showed a positive and significant association with internal audit effectiveness. The findings of the study reveal that independence, competency, the size, coordination between internal and external auditors, top management support have positive influence of effectiveness of internal audit function. Other factors such as competency level of internal audit staff which has been reported to be low and as well as other ad-hoc duties assigned to internal auditors are noted to be the factors that affect its function negatively. The research established that it behooves on the Police Council and Police Management Board to focus attentively on these important factors that pose a challenge, to promote the effectiveness of internal audit department in order to accomplish the vision, mission statements and the core value of the service.

CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION

       Background of the Study

The corporate problems experienced by many companies in the world in recent years, which led to the collapse of many of them, have sparked the need for a set of ethical and professional controls and principles to achieve confidence and credibility in the information contained in the financial statements. These corporate scandals, such as the Enron scandal, Adelphia scandal, WorldCom scandal, the Tyco scandal and the recent collapse of various local banks in Ghana are largely attributed to weak corporate governance structures in these corporations. They have brought into attention the need for examining and understanding the different aspects of corporate governance and its relationship to the organizational bodies which are responsible for the monitoring processes, such as the internal audit department and the audit committee. These scandals brought to light the increasing need for transparency in corporate operations (Drogalas Arampatzis & Anagnostopoulou, 2016).

For every government or private organization, institutions or business unit, corporate governance defines the corporate structure of the organization, the relationships and responsibilities of the various parts of the organization and ensures the transparency in these relationships. Corporate governance structures such as the internal auditing is usually the tool that is used for enhancing transparency, regarding especially financial information which is used by stakeholders of the organization. This is usually the case in corporate organizations where accounting for finances area of the focused for the internal audit committee (Gramling, Maletta, Schneider & Church, 2004).