Factors Affecting the Success of Government Audits: A Case Study of Pakistan

Abstract

This research is undertaken to explore the antecedents behind ineffective audits at government level. Government audits carry significant importance to make government entities accountable for utilization of funds for public welfare. In Pakistan, corruption and misappropriation of funds at government level is continuously destroying public trust and economic welfare. To rectify the situation, it is necessary to make audit effective. The data has been collected from fifteen government auditors of Pakistan through face to face in-depth interviews. The main themes in interviews were coded in QSR NVIVO 10 and presented through word tree maps, word tag cloud and Nvivo based conceptual model. Pearson correlation coefficients have been generated to determine the relationship between several antecedents and ineffective government audits. Pattern of talk concluded that massive corruption, conservative auditing methods, lack of cooperation from auditee, low morale of auditors, lack of financial independence, lack of power to take action against malpractices, lack of financial, technological and human resources, lack of qualified trainers and ineffective training institutes are antecedents of ineffective audits which ultimately make it difficult to bring transparency and accountability in the public sector. It is recommended that Parliament should facilitate government auditors through the availability of sufficient resources, training and growth opportunities.