The effectiveness of internal controls on the management of internally generated funds at the university teaching hospital.

While there exist internal controls in the public health institutions in Zambia, several inconsistencies; violation of established financial management guidelines and procedures, contracts and services are not being rendered in accordance to set-out procedures, cost overruns due to delays in project completion, inappropriate payments for equipment supplied, equipment and goods procured at a much higher cost than market value, have been observed and cited by stakeholders and the Auditor General’s report. It is not clear therefore, why these irregularities would exist in public health institutions when the internal controls system exists. To assess the Effectiveness of internal Controls on internally generated funds in Public Health Institutions using the University Teaching Hospital as a case study. This study employed a cross sectional descriptive study design. It was conducted at the University Teaching Hospital. The sample for the study was 40 composing of the finance/revenue and procurement officers. Purposive sampling procedure was used selected the respondents and primary data was collected using a semi-structured questionnaire. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 26.0 at three levels: Univariate, Bivariate and multivariate. Findings show that the internal controls implemented at UTH are; control environment, risk assessment, control activities, information and communication, and monitoring activities. The factors which were found to influence the implementation of internal controls are; age of the employees, having employees with Certificate, Degree, Masters levels of education, having employees with an accounting profession and having employees with 1+ years of experience. Age of the employees, having employees in tertiary education; Degree, Masters levels of education, having employees with an accounting profession and having employees with 1+ years of experience influenced the effectiveness of internal controls positively while having employees with certificate influenced the effectiveness of internal controls negatively. Furthermore, findings indicate that internal controls at the University Teaching Hospital are quite effective. There is greater need of improving them especially in the areas of information technology, information and communication, and Monitoring activities, they need more improvement in audits and accountability as this would make the system very effective.

Grantor dc:publisher

The University of Zambia

Year dc:date.issued

2023

Author dc:creator

• Mbewe, Elizabeth

Language dc:language.iso

en

Repository record dc:identifier.uri

https://dspace.unza.zm/handle/123456789/9113

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.unza.zm:123456789/9113