IPSAS Adoption and Comparability of Financial Reporting in State Government in Northern Nigeria

Adoption of IPSAS in financial reporting by public entities is expected to impact the public sector particularly in areas of improve quality of financial accountability, transparency, curb corruption which cumulates to enhanced economic growth and development around the world. This study examines the impact of IPSAS compliance on financial reporting quality of comparability of northern state in Nigeria. The population of the study comprise of nineteen (19) northern state in Nigeria of which all were studied. The study used secondary data sourced from annual report and accounts of the sampled state government. The annual report and account were sourced from the office of the state Accountant General of each of the sampled state and/or the state government website for the period 2015-2022. The independent variable is IPSAS compliance while comparability is the dependent variable. To examine the study data, descriptive statistics, spearman correlation statistics and multiple regression analysis were used. The study finding showed that IPSAS compliance has no significant impact on comparability of financial report of state government in northern Nigeria. The study recommends that the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (AGF) and Accountant Generals of the various states should intensify training and retraining of accounting personnel in the final accounts department responsible for the preparation of financial reports in order to ensure full compliance with IPSASs.