As it will be practically impossible to
talk of a building without a foundation, so also it will be professionally
imbalance to talk of Audit procedure in a public sector organization” without
actually bringing to time light what public sector organization portrays.

Public sector organization refers to those
organizations set up by government for the purpose of providing social services
with profit motive if any, at the background.

“organization” in the eyes of the law is
an actual being. It is an intangible person with many of legal rights, powers
and obligations of an individual. It may take contracts, hold and sell
property, sue and be sued in its own name. Organizations therefore, owe their
births to creation and they are owned and managed differently precisely because
of their unique artificial legal make up. Such organizations include Kaduna
State Water Board, National Electric Power Authority, to mention but few.

Every human organization, however,
simply require written records which the management or administration needs to
keep decisions formulation of general rules, the making of policies and the
legal validation of the organization status, procedures and relationships with
other organizations or individuals.

Every civilization, ancient or modern
that had a commercial background or that which had any difficult problems of
governmental organization or administration to solve had to have financial or
at least numerical records of some sort.

Auditing being the exercise aimed at
ensuring that the accounts being reported on show the auditor’s opinion, a true
and fair view of the financial position as at the balance sheet data and of the
profit and loss for the period ended the date, it is suffix to say that as
erroneously being carried about, it is not the objective of an audit to detect
fraud, although fraud or defalcation may surface during audit.

The auditing of an organization
financial statements involves the verification of the balance sheet and the
income and expenditure accounts and the examination of the underlying records
to test their reliability and the basis from which these statements had been prepared.
It means going through financial transaction which had given rise to the
records.

In a public sector like Kaduna State
Water Board, auditing, and audit programme
has to be drawn up and this will be a guide for the audit work. The audit programme will seek to verify
the efficient working of internal control system with particular reference to
the internal check, division of duties and managerial supervision.

The proper working of the system of book
keeping and accounting with particular reference to the accuracy, completeness
and reliability of the records being compiled and the extent of the true and
fair view of the financial statement as produced there from.

In analyzing an audit, it involves a set
of procedures which include: general financial control procedure, cash controls
and the procedures involving receipt and payment, salaries and wages control,
sales and trade debtors control procedure contract award procedure and fixed
asset and investment control.

1.2    STATEMENT OF PROBLEMS