By: G Bennie Bravo Johnson I The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners Liberia Chapter (ACFE) has embarked on a three-day Anti-fraud symposium to address corruption fraud, and underdevelopment and strengthen institutional capacity to enhance sustainable economic growth and development in Liberia.
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, accountants, detectives, investigators, risk management, and compliance officers among others was held under the theme: ‘’Together, reducing fraud nationwide’’.
The program which is currently taking place at the Liberia Maritime Authority (LiMA), provided 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 are 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 more robustly and professionally.
Moreover, the training provides the opportunities to network share their experiences and exchange 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 of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), Inc., was 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, of 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, Certified Fraud Examiners (CFES), 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 the 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. Neto Zarzar 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 bridges to standardization.
According to him, when he took over Maritime, he established a Risk session to assist the internal auditors in doing proper evaluation even before reports are sent to the internal Audit session
‘’I want to say and big thank you to everyone. Now, this whole issue of fighting fraud is important. My colleague from GAC will always say they are there to fight waste and abuse, I ag
