An Evaluation of Internal Control Systems: Evidence from Ghana’s Cocoa Industry
Author(s)
Philip Ayagre* (Lecturer, Department of Accounting, Central University College, Accra, Ghana) and Victor Osei (Accountant, Ghana Cocoa Board, Accra, Ghana), *Corresponding author'sEmail
Citation
Ayagre,
Philip and Osei, Victor (2015), “An Evaluation of Internal Control Systems:
Evidence from Ghana’s Cocoa Industry”, MERC
Global’s International Journal of Management, Vol. 3, Issue 1, pp. 01-15.
Article history
Submitted: August 26, 2014, Revision received: October 23, 2014,
Accepted: November 11, 2014
The collapse of the internal
control system of an organisation consequently leads to its failure. This study
is endeavoured to examine the internal control system of Ghana Cocoa Board. The
study particularly investigated the internal control effectiveness of the five
subsidiaries of Ghana Cocoa Board under three of COSO’s five components of an
internal control system i.e., control environment, risk assessment, and
monitoring activities. The data for the study was accumulated from questionnaires
administered to managers (including audit managers) of all the subsidiaries,
divisions and units of COCOBOD. A five point Likert scale was facilitated to acquire
the responses of the respondents and SPSS was utilised to analyse the data. The
study renders vivid research results. Most notably that all three control
components assessed manifested strong control effectiveness, however weak
controls were exposed with regards to management’s commitment to competence,
risk identification and management, and management’s tracking of whether
deficiencies are remediated on a timely manner. Therefore, it has been
recommended that the Ghana Cocoa Board should periodically evaluate its system
of internal controls to safeguard that all components of the system are
functioning properly.
Keywords
Internal
control system, Control environment, Risk assessment, Monitoring, Effectiveness.
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