Search results

In recent times, there has been some disquiet within certain sectors of the Singapore business community over the role of auditors in detecting corporate fraud. The cause of this concern can perhaps be attributed partly to the Barings collapse in February 1995 and the subsequent suggestions that the auditors of the Barings subsidiary in Singapore, Barings Futures Singapore Pte Ltd (BFS), may have been negligent in their audit work. More recently, in mid‐1996, a substantial locally listed company, Amcol Holdings Ltd (Amcol), was placed under judicial management amid rumours alleging possible misdeeds by senior executives and directors. The Amcol saga has, once again, focused some attention on the role of auditors and their duty to detect fraud in company accounts.

The global perception of Nigeria as the ‘black hole of corruption’ should be seen in its proper historical context, where corruption is the vestige of a colonial legacy. Moreover, within the international trade which is dominated by the North, corruption is the norm in Nigeria. With the introduction of corruption into the Nigerian ethos, its tentacles permeate from the highest echelons of government to the lowest level of the Civil Service, both national and local. Any transaction involving a public official must involve a bribe from the corrupter to the corruptee. The proceeds of crime are handled by fences — the financial institutions. The perpetrators of corruption are deemed to have personality defects which are responsible for their deviant behaviour. The victims are the Nigerian public who have been adversely affected by the deprivation which has resulted in underdevelopment and perpetual economic slavery. The myriad corruption control measures adopted have failed essentially because of the protection of vested interests compounded with corruption in the judiciary, quangos and law enforcement agencies.