The Necessity of the Establishment of Auditing Committee and Internal Auditing Unit on Promoting the Level of Accountability of Metropolise's Municipalities

Executives and supervisory officer of most large bodies of public sector, e.g., the Government and municipalities are elected by citizens, either directly or indirectly. Therefore, in democratic societies, citizens’ authority is vested in their proxies. Along these lines and according to agency theory as well asstewardship theory, citizens as the primary holder of resources are entitled to hold their proxies accountable and the proxies must be accountable as well. Accountability lies at the heart of democratic societies, municipalities being no exception. Besides, auditing as a supervisory tool guarantees accountability. Auditing triangle includes auditing committee, internal auditor, and externalauditor that accomplish and evaluate accountability mechanisms and corporate governance.The main purpose of the present research was investigating the necessity of the establishment of auditing committee and internal auditing unit on promoting the level of accountability of metropolises’ municipalities. To do this, questionnaires were utilized to elicit experts’ views regarding the issue.Participants included two groups, a) financial managers, heads of accounting units, internal auditing managers, as well as municipalities’ independent and internal auditors, and b) faculty members of accounting departments and postgraduate students. The results indicated that the establishment of auditing committee and internal auditing unit in metropolises’ municipalities will resultin promoting the level of accomplishment and evaluation of their financial and operational accountability.