Dr Victoria Enape, Pro-tem President, Chartered Institute of Forensic and Investigative Auditors of Nigeria (CIFIA) says Nigeria stands to benefit a lot from the services of CIFIA.
Enape made the submission at the pre-Induction Training/Mandatory Continuing Professional Education of CIFIA with the themeTransition to Forensic and Investigative Audit.
She said that CIFIA would save Nigerian government the cost of inviting Foreign Forensic Auditors for fraud investigation as it were.
To some large extent it takes only Nigerian Forensic Auditors who knows the terrain to be able to track or investigate fraud successfully in Nigeria. Therefore, it is important to patronise made in Nigeria to grow Nigeria.
It will help to train government agents and staff through to certification on the use of science and technology of forensic and investigative audit skills for auditing of financial statement and put in place some advanced mechanisms to prevent fraud in their various organisations to avoid reacting to fraud issues after taken place which has not yield results in our country over the years.
It will primarily train all her members and also the staff in relevant agencies to be proactive rather than just being reactive to fraud cases.
If we as a country must address the problem of corruption and corrupt practices, we must be seen to come up with better ways to assist our government and relevant agencies in preventing fraud, she said.
According to her, CIFIA will help to strengthen the nations institutional frameworks thereby bringing us at par with other developed countries, in line with global standards and competitiveness.
More so, CIFIA said it would stimulate public confidence, and enhance transparency and accountability in our economic system and our national lives.
The pro-tem president said CIFIA would also answer the question often posed by foreign investors as to the safety and guarantee of their direct foreign investments (DFIS) in our country.
She added that CIFIA could help Nigeria to develop skilled professionals to deepen the fraud prevention, detection and preserve money in government.
Enape urged Nigerians to disregard alleged conflict between the functions of the proposed Institute and other institute established by existing legislations.
She said that CFIA should not be seen as a rival institute or a threat to any existing professional bodies in Nigeria, because it was not out to attack existing professional bodies.
Source: NAN