A study on audit lag in financial reporting of Sarawak local authorities / Dyg Nazari Awg Drahman

This study presents and discusses the accounts preparation lags and audit lags of Sarawak local authorities. The importance of timely financial reporting by local government is as important as the private sector as the usefulness of information depends on it. The objectives of this study is to investigate the duration of time taken by auditors to prepare and certify the annual accounts of Sarawak local authorities, to determine whether the trend of both lags have improved over time, to present statistical evidence on both lags as well as to provide recommendations in improving the financial reporting of Sarawak local authorities. The study was conducted by document analysis and statistical investigation. It is revealed that the Sarawak local authorities still take quite a long time to prepare and certify their annual accounts and the trend of the accounts preparation lags and audit lags did not show a consistent trend in preparing and certifying the accounts. The multiple regression shows that the hypotheses are opposite from what was expected.