The role of internal audit function on the performance of water supply and sanitation authorities in Tanzania :

Abstract

The study aimed to examine the Role of Internal Audit Function in The Performance of Water Supply and Sanitation Authorities in Tanzania. Three specific objectives guided this study such as to examine the role of internal audit function on revenue growth, to assess the role of internal audit function on cost control and to ascertain the role of internal audit function on the quality of services rendered. The study employed both qualitative and quantitative research approaches. The study population included 100 MORUWASA employee where a sample size of 80 respondents were purposively selected from the study area and the data were gathered through questionnaires. Analysis of data was done through descriptive statistics for quantitative data and content analysis for qualitative data respectively. The findings revealed that, the role of internal audit function contribute to the performance of MORUWASA on revenue collection, Cost management and quality of services rendered. The study further show that revenue collections were affected by the quality assurance practices, Internal Controls practices, internal auditor’s independence, internal auditor’s competence and Governance practices. Also, in the case of Cost Control and the Quality of Services rendered both revered that were affected by the quality assurance practices, Internal Controls practices, internal auditor’s independence, internal auditor’s competence and Governance practices. Moreover, internal audit function was found to affect budgeting and budgetary control practices which enable to proper financial management and internal audit function helps managers to meet their responsibilities and undertake better strategies. Therefore, any positive changes on those factors would result positively in the performance of MORUWASA. The study recommended that internal audit needs to understand the expectations of its primary stakeholders senior viii management and the audit committee and align its activities accordingly. Internal auditors need to deal with more and more financial data, developing new auditing procedures and using the new technology and evaluation methods are clearly in need, such as: sampling audit, feasibility study, and Computer-Assisted Audit Techniques (CAAT).