Analysis of factors for good audit committees in the public sector organizations (PSOs)

Ineffective audit committee in public sectors organizations has been associated with malpractices and misuses of public funds which have resulted into lots of public talks and political scandals. This study was intended to analyze factors which make good audit committees in the public sector organizations in Tanzania. Selected factors of audit committee composition it terms of independence, committee size, financial expertise and multi-disciplinary team members, audit committee authority based on presence of committee charter, financial reporting responsibilities, internal and external audit responsibilities, and audit committee diligence in terms of number of meetings was analyzed to show the extent of good audit committee effectiveness in public organizations. In order for research objectives to be analyzed researcher employed descriptive research design, research data was collected through use of structured questionnaires and collected data was analyzed into descriptive and inferential analysis methods, hypothesis was tested by using simple linear regression (ANOVA) test. Research findings reveal that audit committee composition, authority and diligence in the researched public sector organizations to some extent performs well. This is manifested by more than three meetings held in very financial year where they meet to review final accounts and reviewing reports from internal auditors regarding the effectiveness of internal control systems, to some extent internal audit committees are independent as their works are not intervened by the management and thus they thoroughly review the effectiveness of internal control system in their organizations.