ZUKBEE, John Danebari
Department of Accountancy
Rivers State University, Port Harcourt.
john.zukbee@ust.edu.ng
WILLIAMSON Godwin Singto
gswilly73@yahoo.com
ABSTRACT
The present study examined the relationship between audit quality and the relevance of financial reporting in
Nigerian consumer goods manufacturing companies that are publicly listed. The investigation focused on analyzing data collected before the onset of Covid-19 pandemic. The research adopted a correlation research approach, assessing a sample of thirteen publicly listed manufacturing companies operating in the consumer goods sector over a span of seven years (2012-2018). Ordinary Least Square regression technique was used to analyze a pool of panel data extracted from the published annual reports of the sampled organizations. The findings showed a weak association between audit quality measured by audit fee and value relevance of the sampled organizations’ financial reports. The implication is that audit fee does not necessarily guarantee the relevance of financial statements numbers. Based on the results obtained, the study recommends that audit fee should be adequate enough to guarantee the auditor’s independence and objectivity which are integral quality of external auditor.
Keywords: Audit fee, audit quality, auditor’s independence, auditor’s objectivity, value relevance