Problems Facing External Auditors in Kuwait

Abstract

Audit quality maintains positive association with the level of confidence of different stakeholders who are concerned about the financial and operational performance of audited financial statements. Hence, the role of the external auditor is unavoidable to restore good corporate governance. The purpose of the study is to identify the problems, which face the external auditors in Kuwait. In order to achieve this objective, 120 questionnaires have been distributed to random external auditors in Kuwait. A total of 100 questionnaires were returned; resulting in 83% usable response rate. The study showed that the external auditors in Kuwait faced many problems regarding the laws and legislations. It also demonstrated that the absence of independent and specialized party for legislations of auditing, insufficient role of professional associations in educating auditors, the weak of internal control over audited companies and the low fees of auditing as the most important problems facing external auditors in Kuwait. The analysis revealed that the lack of confidence between the audit offices and firms, clients relax to some of the audit offices and firm slowdown in paying audit fees seem to be the least significant obstacles facing external auditors. The study concluded that applying appropriate criteria for calculating the audit fees and educating auditors on the importance of adhering to professional ethics are important variables to overcome the auditors’ problems.