The Importance Of Audit Committee Meetings

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2.5.1 Ensure that audit committee independence is real as well as perceived. All Audit Committee members must always act independent of management. For instance, audit committee members should voice their own opinions and they should exercise great care not to allow, even in subtle ways, their relationships with management or their trust or confidence in management to compromise their continual display of impartiality and objectivity. It is essential that audit committee members should also have independence of thought, judgment and action rather than only possessing formal independence according to prescribed criteria, so that independence is not only perceived or seen, but is real and applied. Moreover, in order to sustain the effectiveness…show more content…
(Meeting frequently) To ensure committee meetings runs well, the committee needs to have the right agenda and receive the right materials beforehand. The attendees, and how they interact with committee members, also influence the success of meetings. Given how many responsibilities and roles the committee has, it needs to ensure it is meeting often enough and at the right points during the year. It is recommended that there should not be fewer than three meetings during the year, held to coincide with key dates within the financial reporting and audit cycle. However, most AC chairmen will wish to call more frequent meetings. Moreover, the AC should, at least annually, meet the external and internal auditors, without management, to discuss matters relating to its remit and any issues arising from the audit. Formal meetings of the audit committee are the heart of its work. However, they will rarely be sufficient. Therefore, the AC chairman and the other members should keep in touch on a continuing basis with the key people involved in the company’s governance. Hence, these are the ways whereby the committee can create an effective meeting environment, allowing the members to engage in meaningful discussion and make the most of private sessions and in so doing, it would lead to improve the effectiveness of the…show more content…
If not, addressing this issue is warranted. The level of integrity of financial reporting management should be high. They should maintain confidentiality, identify, disclose and manage conflicts of interest, act in a manner that would withstand scrutiny, foster responsible, ethical decision-making, instill a culture of accountability, transparency and quality financial reporting throughout the

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