The Association of Forensic and Investigative Auditors (AFIA) has attributed the growing incidences of undetected fraud in the country to archaic auditing methods.
President of the association, Dr (Mrs) Victoria Ayishetu Enape made the disclosure during a training and induction of new members in Abuja.
She specifically cited the case of the missing $20 billion during former President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration to weak and outdated auditing methods which failed to detect the movement of such an amount of money.
To add salt to serious injury, she lamented that billions of Naira was spent to engage foreign auditors to track and investigate the missing money, a development which the country could have avoided if it had certified forensic and investigative auditors with modern tools of detecting fraud.
To bring Nigeria to the global standards, the Senate last week read out a proposed bill to set up the Chartered Institute of Forensic and Investigative Auditors.
AFIA is the leading anti-fraud organisation and the premier provider of forensic and investigative audit training in the country.
The proposed Chartered Institute of Forensic and Investigative Auditors in Nigeria Bill which has scaled through first reading at the Senate aims to facilitate the transition from the traditional audit to forensic and investigative audit.
Forensic and investigative audit is a system that ensures objectivity and transparency in advanced audit. It will also engender investors trust and public confidence in the country’s accounting and financial reporting systems.
With the use of preventive forensic mechanisms, the occurrence of fraud and loss of public assets will be largely reduced.
The association is for accountants, auditors, lawyers, police and other security agencies, stock brokers, tax professionals, economists, judicial officers and court registrars, criminologists, computer specialists and bankers.
Dr Enape noted that with fraud costing entities an estimated 60% of their annual revenues, organisations lacking proactive fraud preventive measures were the most vulnerable.
She said that while the regulatory and internal controls measures in reporting requirements “help to lessen the possibilities for falsified activities to take place, history has shown that indigenous employees could manipulate even the best control systems for personal gain.”
She explained that forensic and investigative auditors were trained with advanced auditing knowledge which enables them to see and detect what Statutory Auditors cannot see.
The president called on the government to patronise indigenous forensic auditors to grow Nigeria by ensuring the speedy passage of the Chartered Institute of Forensic and Investigative Auditors in Nigeria Bill, which is currently at the Senate.
According to her, “our work is to prevent, detect and put in place some measures to stop the wrong from taking place in future, through the use of science and technology. This implies that after training of members they will be equipped with advanced audit skills that enables them find out who, what, where, why, when and how the wrong took place.”
She added that forensic and investigative auditors “will put together and implement the right systems and meaningful controls to prevent internal and external fraud from happening again,” she said.
The AFIA boss said that forensic auditors looked beyond figures in financial statement as they focus on investigating the inadequacies and shortcomings in the existing financial system and tackling them.
“In the past 10 years, the number of reported cases of fraud and corruption has continued to grow radically across regions. Compounding these are the challenges faced by the audit team and a general lack of the necessary skills set to collect right audit evidence so critical to criminal investigations.”
Enape said that if government desires to eradicate corruption and prevent fraud, then it must join hands with the association to make sure that the Forensic and Investigative Audit Bill is passed.
She said that the money that would be saved by blocking corruption leakages would be enough to take the country out of under-development, employ youths, build hospitals and roads for the people. - The Nation
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