The Effect of Internal Auditor Competency on Internal Audit Quality and Its Implication on the Accountability of Local Government
Accountability is one of the fundamental elements of good governance manifestation that currently is strived in Indonesia. Transparency and accountability of regional financial management requires a supervisory agency of local government, an internal Auditor (inspectorate) to improve the accounting quality. The aim of this study is to provide empirical evidence on how the internal auditor's competency can affect internal audit quality in local government, and how its implication toward accountability of local government will be beneficial. The study is done with the population of all inspectorates in regency/city of Lampung Province, by using path analysis of Partial Least Square (PLS). The result of this study gives empirical evidence that internal auditor (inspectorate) competency positively and significantly affects internal audit quality. Likewise, internal audit quality positively and significantly affects financial accountability of regency/city of Lampung. The higher the internal auditor competency, the better audit quality that is proxied by the number of findings by internal audit. Based on descriptive and verificative approach in all Province/City/Regency Inspectorates in Lampung, it shows that internal auditors (inspectorate) have been adequately competent, but there are some regions that have not been competent (have not had adequate education level and skill). Accountability of local government of regency/city of Lampung is quite accountable, but not all regions of regency/city produce maximal opinion (WTP).