AUDIT COMMITTEE’S AND TIMELINESS OF FINANCIAL REPORTING: EVIDENCE FROM NIGERIAN PUBLIC LISTED COMPANIES

Abstract

This paper investigates the relationship between audit committee characteristics, specifically audit committee independence and frequency of meetings and their impact on the timeliness of financial reporting for thirty (30) Nigerian firms for the period 2021 to 2022. The data for this study was collected from annual reports and a1ccounts. The collected data was analyzed using STATA software the result indicates that audit committee independence and audit committee meeting frequency show negative coefficients (-0.75 and -1.25, respectively) with statistically significant p-values (p < 0.05). This suggests that higher independence and more frequent meetings significantly shorten financial reporting timeliness. Firm Leverage demonstrates a positive coefficient (0.40) with a significant p-value, indicating that higher leverage is associated with slightly longer financial reporting times. The study concluded that audit committee attributes affect the timeliness of corporate financial reporting in Nigeria. And recommend that firms should continue to sustain the culture of having non-executive directors and frequent audit committee meeting to promote timely financial. The findings support the prediction of the agency theory and codes of best practices that adequately resourced and supported audit committee by the board of directors will serve as an effective monitoring mechanism in ensuring timely release of financial reports.