TITLE:
Evaluating Management Support to the Internal Audit System in Bo District Council, Sierra Leone
AUTHORS:
Sualiho Sheriff
KEYWORDS:
Internal Audit Systems, Effectiveness, Management Supports, Local Council
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Business and Management,
Vol.9 No.4,
July
7,
2021
ABSTRACT: One of
the daunting challenges facing the effective operations of Local Councils in
Sierra Leone, particularly the Bo District Council is the quality of support
services that drive accountability in the use of scarce financial resources. It
is on this note that the study is intended to assess management supports towards the internal audit system. The study
was conducted in Bo District Council located in the Southern Region of
Sierra Leone. Bo District Council consists of 16 Chiefdoms, 25 Councilors, 3
Paramount Chiefs, 25 Wards, 16 Committees, 11 Constituencies, and 13 Core Staff
Members. The secondary objectives were: 1) to assess the level of respondents’ perceptions on management support
to the internal audit system; 2) to identify the scale of management support to
the internal audit effectiveness, and 3) to establish the relationship between
management support and internal audit effectiveness. The instruments employed
for data collection include: questionnaires and documentary analysis. The sample population of the study is
thirteen (13) core staff members that represents the sample size of the study,
and includes all the departments and units of the Bo District Council. The 13
core staff members were selected by stratified sampling selection technique.
The study employed descriptive design and results discussed in qualitative and
quantitative methods. The reliability test
was conducted 0.765 using the Crumb Alpha Test and was considered valid.
The key findings of the study include: Lack of full support to the audit committee; lack of independence of the
internal audit system; insufficient allocation of budget. It is recommended
that the Local Service Commission should let the internal audit system being
independent by creating a directorate of the internal audit department.