Doris Ferdinand
The house of Representative on Thursday voted in favour of a bill to Establish Chartered Institute of Forensics and Certified Fraud Examiners of Nigeria in it’s second reading.
The bill seeks to provide for the regulation and control of it’s membership and promote the practice of forensic fraud examiners in Nigeria through a system of organizing and providing professional training in the specialist area of forensic and fraud examination.
The sponsor of the bill, Hon. Yusuf Buba Yakubu, APC Adamawa State noted that the bill encompasses all profession.
“It is a multidisciplinary profession covering Accounting, computer science, law, criminology, medicine, sociology, investigation, psychology with the Association of National Accountants of Nigeria and the Society for Forensic Accounting and Fraud Prevention.”
Contributing to the debate, Hon Olajide Olatunbosun, APC-Oyo State noted that the context of the bill are already obligated to the Institute of Chattered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) and Association of National Accountants of Nigeria (ANAN) respectively.
“This bill was brought in the 8th assembly and it was defeated because everything that is documented here to be done by this new body is within the mandate of ICAN and ANAN.
“Forensic accounting is just employing special skills to investigate misconduct in financial reporting which falls within the scope and mandate of any accounting body. He noted.
“What this bill is proposing is already being done by ICAN and ANAN and we should not be mislead to establish another institute.
Hon. Olajide further appealed to his colleagues to trash the bill.”This bill should be thrown away into the trash bin of history once and for all and should never come back here.” he added.
The Deputy Speaker, Rep. Ahmed Idris Wase, APC-Plateau State querried the delay in passing the bill reiterating that all the bill seek is “prominence”.
“I have not find uptill this moment the reason as to why this bill has not passed second reading.
“As at the moment, today, Nigeria go to hire forensic auditors from South Africa to come and do forensic audit in Nigeria.
“If we have an election, I don’t know whether it is an accountant that will come and do forensic auditing for us.
The House Deputy Whip, Hon. Nkeiruka Onyejeocha, APC Abia State aligning with the deputy speaker stated that the body has been in existence long ago and needs legal backing for adequate operations.
“This body is been in existence since 2011. What they are seeking today is to give it legal backing for them to start operation.”
