FRAUD vs AUDITOR

In our society where the business culture has been overridden in recent times with fraudulent practices penetrated by management and employees, the lack of clear understanding of the duties of an auditor in relation to fraud detection has often led to unjustifiable criticisms of auditor’s role. Auditors are known to be competent, honest and independent professionals who express unbiased opinion on the truth and fairness of the financial statement as presented by management to members of the company. The accounting profession has over the years built a reputation, which encourages others to rely upon the opinions auditors express. If these opinions are unclear or even unreliable, serious consequences may and indeed have resulted.

                  It has been observed that “Government spending has always been big business, but it has become so massive today that the public through its legislators is demanding to know whether the huge outlays of money are being spent wisely or whether they should be spent at all.” Officials and employees who manage public sector activities are by virtue of that duty, required to render adequate accounts of their activities to the public.

                 The incidence of fraud continues to increase across public sectors and across nations. Fraud is a universal problem as no nations is immunes, although developing countries and their various states suffer the most pain. Fraud includes all the multifarious means human ingenuity can devise that are resorted to by be individual to get an advantage over another by false suggestions or suppression of the truth. It includes surprises, tricks, cunning or dissembling, and any unfair way by which another is cheated.