Is the quality assessment of the internal audit function mandatory in Nigeria?
Yes, the quality assessment of the internal audit function is mandatory for all the Public Limited Liability Companies (PLC) and Public Interest Entities in Nigeria as prescribed by the Nigerian National Code of Corporate Governance (NCCG) 2018 principle 18.6 and the NGX (formerly Nigerian Stock Exchange/NSE) Corporate Governance Guidelines (NGX CCG). The NCCG (2018) and NGX CCG require that the Internal Audit Functions should adhere to the IIA standards, and that the independent external assessment should be done every three years and reports submitted to the NGX and Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria (FRC).
How about the companies that are not public listed or public interest entities?
Other categories of companies regardless of size can benefit from the internal audit quality assessments. They can leverage the internal audit quality assessments to embed internal audit best practices in their operations to help the optimize value delivery and resource utilization. For small companies, the continuous and periodic assessments may suffice while for the large conglomerates adopting the three categories of assessments ( continuous, period and independent) assessment is good.