Liberia: ACFE-Liberia Chapter Takes Giant Step to Curb Corruption Fraud & State Collapse
Monrovia — The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners Liberia Chapter (ACFE) has embarked on a three-day Anti-fraud symposium to address corruption fraud, underdevelopment and strengthen institutional capacity to enhance sustainable economic growth and development in Liberia.
By Lincoln G. Peters, contributing writer
The three-day conference runs from November 13-15 and is held in the conference room of the Liberia Maritime Authority.
The three-day conference, which brought together financial stakeholders from the public and private sectors, particularly internal and external auditors, banking and business staff, accountant, detective, investigator, risk management, compliance officer among others, was held under the theme: ‘’Together, reducing fraud nationwide’’.
The program provides an opportunity to the Chief Executive Officer of the Liberia Maritime Authority, Cllr. Neto Zarzar Lighe to make a remark and presentation on ‘’ Detecting and investigating maritime fraud’’.
The purpose and objective of the conference is designed to provide a platform that is geared towards refreshing and broadening the minds of participants with modern fraud investigation and examination techniques as well as encouraging financial experts to act with integrity and perform their work in a more robust and professional manner.
Moreover, the training provides the opportunities to network, and share experiences and exchange of ideas on contemporary relevant issues affecting their organizations.
The Liberia Chapter of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners #198 was founded in 2012 and having fulfilled all requirements set forth by the Association Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), Inc, got accredited in 2014 as a local chapter.
The group is an affiliate of the global body, the ACFE, which is the world’s largest anti-fraud organization and premier provider of anti-fraud training and education with global headquarters in Austin, Taxes, USA.
Delivering the opening remarks and laying the foundation for the conversation, Atty. Augustine G. Chenoway, President, Liberia Chapter-ACFE, extolled the participants for coming, while adding that the mission of the group is to reduce the incidence of fraud and white-collar crime and to assist the membership in fraud detection and deterrence.
According to him, as Certified Fraud Examiners (CFES), they are aware that occupational fraud is characterized by deception, and it is intended to deprive other individuals or organizations of property or money, adding that globally, fraud causes billions of dollars in damages to many companies, governments and individuals each year.
He further indicated that fraud can dramatically affect the quality of life of its victims and the major fraud schemes include Asset Misappropriation, Financial Statement Fraud and Corruption.
‘’In most cases, Financial Statement frauds involve Company’s executive management understating annual earnings to avoid or evade taxes or overstating earnings to attract new investors or creditors. Hence, regulatory bodies need to critically review companies’ annual financial statements to avoid relevant stakeholders being deprived of needed resources’’ Mr. Chenoway added.
For his part, Cllr. Lighe, Commissioner, Liberia Maritime Authority, expressed appreciation and excitement to the local Chapter for hosting the training, while urging institutional heads to see financial experts and auditors as bridge to standardization.
According to him, when he took over Maritime, he established Risks session to assist the internal auditors to do proper evaluation even before report are sent to the internal Audit session
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