Abstract:
The purpose of the study was to investigate how major internal audit standards are applied in the
internal audit departments of selected public enterprises in East Arsi Zone, Ethiopia. Accordingly
competency, compliance, Independency, Risk management and quality assurance has been taken as
major parameters for comparison. 36 Questionnaires were distributed for the target population.
Questionnaires were designed to measure the level of agreement of the respondents on the
applicability of each parameter. The result shows competency in terms of educational level,
background and experience is in line with the standards. Though majority of the respondents are
agreed that they are working as per internal auditing standards, a number of auditors don’t agree on the
compliance. Auditors also responded that their independency is impaired because most of the time
they are attached with internal functional areas.
