Factors Affecting Internal Audit Effectiveness in Sudanese Public Sector

Abstract

The main purpose of this study is to investigate on the factors that affecting internal audit effectiveness in the selected Sudan public sector offices. This investigation is focused on 4 purposely selected public-sector offices that are expected to represent all other sectors (Sudan Water Generating Company limited, Sudanese Standards and Metrology Organization, Sudanese Petroleum Pipelines Company, Sudan Customs).Five hypotheses using a survey way were developed and tested. The source of the required data to the researcher was the Internal Audit staff and managers across the public sectors. The data collected using a Likert-Scale type questionnaire were distributed on a sample of the population of the study and filled out by 41 internal auditors and 27 managers. Descriptive analysis, correlation analysis, and multivariate regression model through Excel and SPSS evaluates the relevance between the dependent variable:(effectiveness of internal audit department) and its five main independent variables: (management support, management’s perception of internal audit values, organizational independence of internal auditors, placement of adequate and competent internal audit staff, and the presence of approved internal audit charter). A number of results were reached by the study; some of the most important ones were: 1- The management supports and the presence of adequate and competent IA staff in the public-sector offices are positively related to the internal audit effectiveness in the public-sector offices. 2- The internal auditors of public sectors are focusing their activities on compliance with laws and regulations and Operational/performance audit. 3- Little attention was paid to financial audit, internal audit system evaluation and risk assessment which led to difficulty to the sector to improve organizational performance. Based on these results, the researcher recommends that the internal auditors of the public-sector office should maintain and improve their effective contribution for the IAE in their office, by using the supports from their offices management team appropriately, by improving their professional certification in line with the institute of internal audit standards and organizational guidelines and by introducing themselves with modern technologies that improve their IA function for their office and also recommended to work in accordance with the available internal audit charters, it helps the internal auditors to provide the appropriate reports and to know the extent of their relationships with the managements, briefly describes their rights and duties IA and the employers.