By Chibuike Nwabuko
Abuja (Sundiata Post) — Association of Forensic and Investigative Auditors in Nigeria (AFIA), in Abuja, called on the Federal Government to adopt forensic and investigative auditing in tackling corruption in the system.
This, according to AIFA, would address financial fraud in the country.
AIFA further argued that corruption is presently at its advanced stage, and has made it difficult for traditional auditors to detect.
President of AFIA, Enape Ayishetu, made this call in Abuja at a training for forensic and investigative auditors.
“A common failure in many organisation and business system is that these controls are largely set by employees who have no experience on reading fraudsters mind. They do not have adequate knowledge on what can go wrong therefore these controls become more of Management Information System (MIS) than controls to prevent wrong.
“No fraud, however, big technically sophisticated, only lack of control has helped it to go through in the absence of perfect training.
“There must be need for government to have well trained team who understands the nitty-gritty of frauds,why they happen, how they can be prevented, detected and how best to move forward once the fraudsters surface,” she said.
She suggested further that Nigeria must move at par with other countries of the world by adapting forensic and investigative audit, if the fight against corruption must see the light of the day.
She further made a case for forensic auditing in public sector.
”Corruption in Nigeria public sector has moved to a stage where looters are now engaging sophisticated digital technologies in penetrating fraud.Any country that has not bought into the forensic and investigative audit is lacking behind. How do you think you can use analogue to tackle digital? You need digital to tackle digital,” she said.
Enape noted that failure on the part of unskilled auditors in discovering fraud has cost the government a huge monetary loss.
“It’s no longer news that fraud and corruption has destroyed Nigeria system and it has no sign of stopping,yet we have auditors in places who have failed to detect such frauds due to lack of special skills and mechanisms, thereby making Nigeria to lose millions of dollars and billions of naira annually,” she said.