Related Internal Audit Criteria and Financial Management in State-owned tertiary institutions in South-south, Nigeria

Abstract

The study was carried out to examine the influence of Internal Audit Criteria on Financial Management of State-owned Tertiary Institutions in South –South, Nigeria with a particular focus on expenditure management and cash flow management as key sub-variables. The correlation research design was adopted for the study. The population of the study was 164 internal auditors in all the State-owned tertiary institutions in South-South, Nigeria. The researcher used selective sampling technique to sample 154 internal auditors in the Conventional Education sector in the State-owned tertiary institutions in the South-South. The researchers developed instrument titled “Related Internal Audit Criteria and Financial Management Questionnaire (RIACFMQ) was used for data collection. The instrument was subjected to face validity. A reliability coefficient of 0.87 was obtained for the instrument using Cronbach Alpha statistics. R and R2 values of simple linear regression were used to answer the research questions while F-values of simple linear was used to test the hypotheses. The findings revealed a significant positive relationship between well-defined internal audit criteria and the efficiency of both expenditure management and cash flow management.Based on the findings of the study, it was concluded that robust internal audit mechanism contributes substantially to improve financial management in State-owned tertiary institutions. It was recommended among others that, the State government should strengthen internal audit frameworks and continuous capacity building for internal auditors to enhance accountability, transparency, and financial sustainability in the sector