The Society for Forensic Accounting & Fraud Prevention (SfFAFP) has declared that it would focus on institutional building and strengthening of the capacity of law enforcement agencies and key Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of the government in order checkmate Nigeria’s loss of N2.5 trillion annually to fraud and corruption.
The society also stated that the African continent also suffers the loss of 25 per cent of its budgeted public revenue to corruption.
Speaking during the society’s recent 4th virtual induction of 192 associates in Abuja, the Chairman of the SfFAFP, Mr. Iliyasu B. Gashinbaki, said the society would pursue strategic domestic and international partnerships and capacity development of the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and corporations in the areas of internal control processes and systems to ensure proper book keeping and regulatory compliance.
Gashinbaki said that the society would commence professional development programmes and deploy technology enabled online programs such as e-inductions, e-professional training and e-mandatory continuous professional development in the fourth quarter of this year to raise young agile professionals that would tackle corruption and fraud in the country.
He noted that the knowledge gap is huge and the complexities of the financial systems are becoming more sophisticated because of artificial intelligence (AI), 5G, block chain among others.
“These are all emerging technologies that are impacting on the practice of accounting profession itself and forensic accountants will have to be on the cutting edge of knowledge acquisition to cope with the pace that is required to the changing needs of the business environment, needs of the regulatory and compliance frameworks of corporates and even government,” he said.
He attributed the prevalence of corruption in the country to institutional weakness. He said: “Why we have so much corruption is because the institutions themselves are weak, the processes are not strengthened and instead of building strong institutions, we focus on strong men and therefore, internal control and internal processes are weak and impeding the growth of the institutions. Until we build strong institutions, corruption and fraud would continue to hunt African countries.”
