Information Technology Governance in Local Government: Audit Committee Responsibilities

The study aims to assess the effectiveness of information technology (IT) governance in local government by examining the audit committee’s role and capabilities relating to IT governance. This study is prompted by a local government IT infrastructure failing to adequately support service delivery to communities due to poor governance skills and knowledge of audit committees. The risk of mismanagement of resources is therefore increased. The study employs a quantitative research approach and a descriptive research design. A questionnaire survey was used to collect data from the audit committee members, internal auditors, managers and Chief Audit Executives and Council and municipal management. The researcher used descriptive and inferential statistics, Stata/SE version 16 software, descriptive analysis, chi-square test, effect factor analysis and exploratory factor analysis to measure the relationship between two-factor variables. Kaizer criterion was accepted as the extraction method, while the Cronbach alpha coefficient was used to determine the internal consistency of the identified factors. The study reveals that audit committees are ineffective in executing their IT governance activities. Furthermore, there are areas of concern in IT assurance audits. The internal audit function lacks the skills and technical capacity to provide IT assurance services and therefore not add sufficient value to the municipality. The study concludes that there is a significant statistical correlation (P