The study examined the relationship between audit competency and performance of local government departments. With specific focus onKanungu District, the study sought to examine the relationship between audit knowledge, audit experience and audit independence and performance of local governments.
This trajectory of the study was informed by the seminal work of Limperg (1932) and Zimmerman (1986). The study used a correlational and descriptive research design to collected data from a sample that was purposively selected. The study revealed that there was a strong positive relationship between audit knowledge and performance of Local Government in Kanungu with a correlation coefficient calculated value of r=0.950 at significance level p=0.000<0.05. Given that the Adjusted R square was 0.902, it means that audit knowledge contributed 90.2% influences on performance of KanunguLocal Government, with 8.8% of performance caused by other factors. Findings further revealed a strong positive relationship between audit independence and performance of Kanungu District Local Government with a correlation coefficient calculated value of r=0.906 at significance level p=0.000<0.05. With Adjusted R square of 0.819, the results indicate that audit independence contributes 81.9% to performance of KanunguLocal Government, while other factors contribute only 18.1% to performance. The study still revealed that there was a weak positive relationship between audit experience and performance of Kanungu District Local Government with a correlation coefficient calculated value of r=0.511 at significance level p=0.000<0.05. Given the Adjusted R square of 0.252, the study indicates that audit experience contributes 25.2% influences on performance of KanunguLocal Government and that 74.8% of performance is caused by other factors such as political environment, social and economic factors.
The study recommends that the Auditor General’s office should always give guidelines to Local Governments such as Kanungu Local Government on how to manage individual audits for purposes of transparency.