Audit committees have developed from a fairly marginal area of public sector activities to a publicly prominent specialism accorded considerable priority and greatly increased legislative recognition. This can be attributed to a myriad of developments such as the King I, King II and King III Reports, as well as the enactment of pieces of legislation such as the Public Finance Management Act. It is due to these developments that the measurement or assessment of the effectiveness of the audit committees becomes imperative. As part of its methodological approach, the article engages in an extensive literature review to glean information on how the audit committees are currently assessed, whether that assessment is adequate and appropriate, and how the current assessment methods can be improved to increase oversight. The information gleaned from literature has been synthesised and, through content analysis, some conclusions were reached.