EFFECT OF AUDIT COMMITTEE ATTRIBUTES ON AUDIT REPORT TIMELINESS OF LISTED FINANCE SERVICE FIRMS IN NIGERIA

This study explores audit committee attributes that influence the timeliness of auditor’s report of a sample of 29 finance service firms listed on Nigerian Stock Exchange for a period of five years (2014-2018). The study specifically investigates the effect of audit committee frequency of meeting and financial expertise on timeliness proxied by audit report lag. Regression analysis was used for the estimation and the results reveal that on the average, the sampled financial firms used 153 days after the year end for the release of their financial reports. Audit committee financial expertise, audit committee meetings, and auditor type have a negative significant relationship with audit reporting lag. The study recommends that regulatory agencies like the Security and Exchange Commission should include as part of the requirement that audit committee should meets regularly in a year. This is because the frequency of audit committee meetings significantly reduces the delay in audit report and audited financial reports.