‘Accountants lack power to audit and investigate cooperate account’

Financial accountants lack the power to regulate the preparation of cooperate accounts, perform audit and investigate audit of corrupt and fraudulent accounting practices, the Chattered Institute of Forensic and Investigative Auditors of Nigerian (CIFIAN) has said.

CIFIAN said it is like the National Assembly setting up its executive and judicial arms within itself or any other arms procuring the services of others into its governance structure, which would always lead to conflict of interest.

Its President, Victoria Enape, said this during the induction of about 100 Fellows and Associate members, yesterday, in Abuja pointed out that forensic and investigative auditing has no meeting point with traditional auditors, as their own auditing focus more on fraud prevention, detection and investigation.

She noted that auditors are seriously needed in Nigeria to checkmate all forms of financial malfeasance and preserve government treasury, saying with enough money in government coffers, unemployment would be addressed and insecurity would fizzle out.

While noting that forensic auditing is in line with global best practices adopted by developed countries, Enape wondered why the House of Representatives was yet to pass the Bill to that effect, which has been passed by the Senate in July last year and transmitted to the House for possible concurrence, into law.

“We are surprised and worried about the delay in the House, which is due to the activities of the enemy of the Bill, orchestrated by greed and parochial interest of group of persons that do not have the interest of Nigerians at heart,” he stated.

The CFIAN president called on the House to disregard antics of the enemies of Nigeria disguising to be protecting the accounting profession, who wants to prevent the country from experiencing deliverance from corruption and cyber crimes that have stunted the country’s development over the years.She noted that with the spate of corruption in the country, government must intervene and do things in a different way to stamp out the menace from society.