AFIA raises alarm over increasing fraud in public sectors

The Association of Forensic and Investigative Auditors (AFIA) on Friday raised the alarm over what it described as increasing rate of fraud and corruption in public sectors in Nigeria and the African continent at large.

The association noted that with fraud costing entities an estimated 60 percent of their annual revenues, organizations lacking proactive fraud preventive measures are the most vulnerable.

President of the association, Mrs Enape Victoria Ayishetu who made the disclosure during a training and induction of new members, titled “Transition to Forensic and Investigative Audit 2”, added “virtually all entities suffer from fraud, though management might not know it.”

Ayishetu said while the regulatory measures and internal controls in reporting requirements help to lessen the possibilities for falsified activities to take place, history has shown that indigenous employees can and have manipulated even the best control systems for personal gain.

She explained that forensic and investigative auditors are trained with advanced auditing knowledge which enables them to see and detect what Statutory Auditors cannot see.

The president called on Nigerian government to patronize made in Nigeria to grow Nigeria by ensuring the speedy passage of our bill at the Senate.

She said “Our work majorly is to prevent, detect and put in place some measures to stop the wrong from taking place in future with 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.

“More importantly they will put together and implement the right systems and meaningful controls to prevent internal and external fraud from happening again.”

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.

We are the world’s leading anti-fraud organization and premier provider of antifraud training and education. We are professionals from forensic and investigative audit fields desirous to offer a platform for energetic and practical professionals to learn the techniques that go beyond the basic knowledge of accounting, auditing and finance.

No fraud, however big is technically sophisticated, only lack of control has helped it to go through in the absence of perfect training. Therefore, there is a need to have forensic auditors with advanced knowledge who understand the details of frauds, why they happen, how they can be prevented, detected and how best to move forward once fraud surfaces.

Many cases of financial statement misrepresentation have been reported and to that extent affected a lot of companies and organizations locally and internationally. Invariably in most instances, it is the auditor that bears most of the blames.

PIt worth of note that Association of Forensic and Investigative Auditors are the last hope of our country Nigeria because traditional audit has failed us and already expired long ago, which was the reason for the case of missing $20 billion at NNPC in 2014 without detecting it with the prescience of internal and External Auditors. AFIA is capable of transforming traditional or statutory Auditors through training and certification to enable them get the necessary skills that can help them to detect and prevent fraud which in turn assists in restoring sanity in Nigeria Financial Management system and bring back our economy to its original condition

Mathew Dadiya, Abuja