Audit Reporting Lag and Audit Quality of Listed Consumer Goods Companies in Nigeria

Abstract

The quality of audit is determined by the ability of an auditor in other to discover the breaches of accounting standards as well as their incentives for such breaches to be reported. That is to say that audit quality can be said to be a product of auditor competence as well as independence. The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between audit reporting lag and audit quality of listed consumer goods companies in Nigeria. The study adopted the ex post facto research design; and fifteen (15) firms were selected from the 20 listed consumer goods firms on the Nigerian Exchange Group. The data used were secondary data and were drawn from the selected firm’s annual report from 2011 to 2020 as are contained in the Nigerian Exchange fact book. The data collected were analysed using Pearson correlation matrix. The results show that Audit reporting lag has negative significant relationship with audit quality of listed consumer goods companies in Nigeria. The study recommends among others that, the consumer goods companies should create enabling environment that will ensure the conduct of proper audit by the auditors and also for a timely release of their reports to users thus promoting quality decision making