The acting Auditor General of the Federation, Augustine Onwudili, has commended President Muhammadu Buhari for signing into law the Bill establishing the Chartered Institute of Forensics and Certified Fraud Investigators of Nigeria (CIFCFIN). He said with this, Nigeria has taken a bold step towards eradicating corruption and financial crimes in the country.
Speaking at the 1st Annual General Meeting of CIFCFIN in Abuja, Onwudili declared: “Wherever there is fraud or wherever they are committing fraud all over the world, the first place they go to for auditing is the Auditor General’s Office and how can we as auditors unravel these frauds? It is through forensics; and this is where the Chartered Institute of Forensics comes in. They are the ones that will be able to unravel fraud errors and bring offenders to book.”
Also speaking, the former Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Prince Adetotunbo Kayode, noted that the institute would help reduce financial fraud and all types of fraud in the various sectors of the economy.
“All over the world today, financial fraud costs the economy hundreds of billions of dollars. In Nigeria, not less than two or three billion dollars is lost to fraud every year. And not all of them will necessarily get to EFCC level. Some of them are at corporate level. It will be easy for the organisation to ask the investigators to help them, not only to help them investigate, but to help them control, reduce and stop its possibility.”
Kayode said CIFCFIN will be involved in scientific investigations and support the police and other investigative agencies in their investigations and, “so many other areas: medical, engineering, and so on, and so forth. It is a multi-sector and multi-disciplinary Institute.”
