The Moderating Role of Supreme Audit Institutions on the Relationships Between the Municipal Audit Quality and the Audit Quality Attributes: Palestine Case.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of the Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) on the relationships between external audit
quality and audit quality attributes: the auditors' characteristics, audit firms' attributes, and the effectiveness of municipal internal control. Data for the
study was collected from secondary and primary sources. The secondary data were collected from the Palestinian SAIs’ annual and the interim
specialized reports from year 2011 to 2020. Moreover, the study employed the questionnaire survey to know the perception of the CPAs who licensed
and in the public practice of the audit profession in Palestine on the role of the SAIs on the audit quality in the municipalities, in order to support the
result of the analysis of the SAIs audit reports. The study uses SPSS Software 20 in order to analyze the collected data by the questionnaire. The study
finds that the SAIs have a medium impact on the relationship between the audit quality and the effective internal control components, as well as the
auditors’ characteristics, but SAIs have weakness impact on the audit firm’s attributes. The findings of the study may help the policymakers in the
municipalities, SAIs, profession regulators, and the audit firms to consider the impact of auditing of SAIs on external audit quality in the municipalities
when they decide on the audit engagement’s agreement and audit process. Moreover, the study opens the doors to the academic researchers to examine
effect of SAIs on the relationship between the audit quality and other audit quality attributes and use other research methods.