EVALUATION OF FRAUD CONTROL MEASURES IN THE NIGERIAN BANKING SECTOR(A CASE STUDY OF CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA, KADUNA BRANCH)
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Over the years, irregularities have been the problems of commercial banks. The term irregularities are used to refer to intentional distortion of financial statement and misappropriation of assets for whatever purpose. Fraud is one type of irregularities. Fraud, in auditing guideline, is used to refer to irregularities involving the use of criminal deception to obtain unjust or illegal advantages.
Fraud may entail that proper accounting records have not been properly maintained, it may also point out that some internal control system are not effective and could not form a reliable source of information for an auditor. Existence of fraud in a financial statement endangers it from showing a true and fair view and complying with the provision of the companies and Allied Matter Acts (CAMA) 1990.
Therefore, fraud in banks must be looked at generally as “acts that involves the loss of assets by banks through dishonest and deceitful means. The fraudster intentionally but dishonestly benefit himself to the detriment of the bank, the bank staff, bank customers and any other member of the public via banking operations. Fraud can be committed by bank staff, bank customers or a third party that is non-customer (Eze, 2004).
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Fraud in the Nigerian Commercial banks has been notable and has remained an unavoidable problem and has resisted all practicable treatment. This incidence has not only become an incessant phenomenon but also been on the increase in the recent past.
In recent years, the volume and frequency of fraudulent practices in Nigeria banks have been on the increase. According to the Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC), the level of reported fraud in Nigeria banks rose from N 804m in 1990 to N3, 199m in 1998. Furthermore, the actual/expected loss to the amount involved in fraud rose from 3 percent in 1990 to 22 percent in 1998. This is evidenced in the report, which is the highest fraud ever reported in any particular year by a Nigerian bank in 1998, when united Bank for Africa Plc wrote of N786m on account of fraud.
The growing scope and scale of fraud in the Nigerian banking industry is surprising and the general confidence reposed in the banking institutions has become eroded since the new concept of distress, bank failure and closures in the recent years. From available records, out of about 114 financial institutions operating in the country as at 1996, 52 were distressed while 6 were acquired.
