Equity to assets (EQAS) is also statistically significant and negatively related to the probability of a qualified opinion, consistent with the univariate results, suggesting that less well capitalized banks are more likely to receive a qualified opinion. Therefore, this finding is consistent with the one of studies on non-financial firms which report that highly-geared companies, which experience financial distress problems, are more likely to received qualified opinions (Ireland, 2003; Spathis et al., 2002). This is probably due to banks management attempts to manipulate financial statements, given the need to overstate their financial position and meet regulators requirements