Stakeholders’ role in ensuring effective financial management in Ghana’s Public Universities: A qualitative analysis of University for Development Studies

Financial management is an important aspect of public administration of every nation and one of the elements that make government effective. Public universities had some disregard for financial regulations, internal control mechanisms and widespread financial irregularities which led to financial losses per various audit reports. This study assessed stakeholder’s role in ensuring effective financial management. Key informant interviews and in-depth document analyses (reports analyses) were used to gather data. The findings were that; the University financial policies were adequately developed by top management but not well communicated to financial administrators; the university had weak budget supervision and monitoring as well as weak accounting and internal controls systems. The study recommended that the University should constitute a budgetary monitoring team to enhance its budgetary system, acquire up-to-date accounting software to facilitate its financial reporting and engage proactive professional internal auditors to raise the standard of the University internal control systems.