Forensic Accounting and Investigation: Bridging the Audit Expectation Gap in the Public Sector of Nasarawa State, Nigeria

This study examined the relationship between forensic accounting and investigation and its role in bridging the audit expectation gap in the public sector of Nigeria with specific focus on Nasarawa State. The study adopted a survey research design approach. The population of the study comprises two hundred and seventy nine (279) accountants drawn from the Nasarawa State Ministry of Finance and Nasarawa State Audit headquarters from which a sample of one hundred of twenty eight (128) accountants were randomly selected and questionnaire administered to. Data were analyzed by a simple descriptive statistics and Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient was used to test the two hypothesis of the study, results showed that there is significant relationship between forensic accounting and investigation services and auditors’ responsibility to provide reliable accounting information, it further revealed that forensic accounting and investigation services will enhance investigation and detection of fraud toward closing the audit expectation gap in Nigeria Public Sector. It concluded therefore, that forensic accounting and investigation is significant in bridging audit expectation gap in the public service and recommended consequently, that; accountants in the public service must embrace forensic accounting and investigation and subject their transactions to it before the statutory auditors’ as a way of bridging the expectation gap in the public sector in Nasarawa State Nigeria.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Not applicable

The datasets used in this study are openly available at [repository link] and the source code is available on GitHub at [GitHub link].

This work did not receive any external funding.