AUDIT COMMITTEE AND TIMELINESS OF FINANCIAL REPORTING OF QUOTED INDUSTRIAL GOODS COMPANIES IN NIGERIA

The audit committee is a key component of corporate governance, tasked with ensuring the accuracy, reliability, and timely release of financial statements, as well as overseeing the firm’s internal control systems. Its role in promoting the prompt dissemination of financial reports is vital and cannot be overstated.. It is against this background that this study evaluates the effect of audit committee on financial reporting timeliness of quoted industrial goods companies in Nigeria from 2012-2020. The specific objectives are to find out the effect of audit meeting,, financial expertise and independence on timeliness of financial reporting. The sample of the study comprises the Twenty-one (21) Industrial goods companies in Nigeria. The Panel data were obtained from the financial statements of the companies. The tests conducted were descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation, Shapiro-Wilk data normality test and heteroskedasticity test. The hypotheses were tested with the aid of robust regression. The results show that audit committee meeting has an insignificant positive effect on timeliness of financial reporting while audit committee financial expertise has a significant negative effect on the timeliness of the financial reporting of the Industrial companies studied. The study recommends that Audit committees of Nigerian Industrial goods companies should hold minimum number of meeting, ensure substantial members have financial expertise and reduce the number of independent directors on the committee.