Expectation gap of risk-based audit approach in Tanzania: the case of Tanzania social action fund II (TASAF II)

Auditing can be established to serve different purpose one being giving reasonable assurance to the investors that their investment are worthwhile and another being giving independent opinion to management that the designed systems are functioning as expected to ensure achievement of the overall organizational strategic objectives. The former kind of audit is of statutory nature and the later is a management tool as one of the internal control instruments. The focus of this study was to determine the expectation gap of the risk based audit approach in TASAF funded sub-projects by fundamentally considering the extent to which the expected outputs from audit function have been achieved. In order to meet this objective, exploratory research design was applied. The approach used for gathering data was questionnaire, quantitative data were utilized in this study. The study indicates that almost half of the respondents are in the view that what audit does in TASAF funded sub projects is what they expect to be done; the findings have further revealed that a good number (majority) of respondents do agree that ‘ audit at TMU/LGAs/NAO, is adding value to TASAF funded sub projects. Also the study has indicated that almost half of the respondents are being aware on audit expectation gap. The findings have indicated therefore that there an expectation gap of the risk based audit approach in Tanzania. The study has implication to the respective managements to use the highlighted challenges in their future strategic plans with a view to building more capacities to their auditors and provide required technical needs. Audit regulators may also use the findings of this study to incorporate in their future plans as inputs to narrow down the audit expectation gap.