CIFIA president urges Buhari to sign bill into law

• Says it will boost fight against corruption in Nigeria

Chartered Institute of Forensic and Investigative Auditors (CIFIA) of Nigeria protem president, Mrs. Enape Victoria Ayishetu, yesterday urged President Muhammadu Buhari to urgently sign the CIFIA bill into law for its effective take-off.

Ayishetu, who spoke with journalists in Abuja on what the bill sort to achieve, said with its passage, the bill would continue to give hope to the hopeless in Nigeria and further boost the fight against fraud and corruption in the country.

Besides, she assured other professional-related bodies that the CIFIA will partner with them to achieve better results and that the new body is not in any way in competition with them, adding: ‘’The emergence of forensic and investigative auditing on the global scene was based on the realisation that financial fraudsters had gone sophisticated and in some instances, taken advantage of the 21st digital revolution to perpetrate that which was undetectable by traditional auditing. Corporate organisations in Europe introduced forensic and investigative auditing as the best approach to the new face of financial fraud.”

The CIFIA president stated that just like any other professional body, such as ICAN, CITN, CIMA, NBA, among others, the CIFIA is out to play its professional role in fraud investigation and prosecution using forensic technology to track perpetrators and bringing them to book.

‘’If Nigeria must progress in our collective prevention and fight against financial fraud, we must develop and increase the standard of advance auditing system that engender integrity, objectivity and trust in accounting and financial reporting process to inspire public confidence in the Nigerian financial and economic system.

‘’The bill will save Nigerian government the cost of inviting foreign forensic auditors for fraud investigation as it were, it would also partner with anti-corruption fight and crusade bodies to win the war.”it will train all members of the body as well as members of staff in relevant agencies to be proactive rather than just being reactive to fraud-related cases. It will also help to strengthen the nation’s institutional framework, thereby bringing the country at par with other developed nations,’’ she stressed.

The bill, passed by the legislature, was jointly sponsored by Senator Ahmed Lawan, Andy Emmanuel Uba and went through first reading, second reading where it was referred to the Committee on Establishment and Public Service under the Chairmanship of Senator Paulker Emmanuel which had a successful public hearing before it finally passed third reading on July 5, 2018.

The CIFIA is an anti-fraud organisation that provides skills to relevant skills in relevant professionals cutting across various fields on the use of science and technology to detect, prevent and investigate fraud no matter how small or big and also put in place sophisticated mechanisms to prevent future occurrences.