Lagos moves to curb fraud in public service

Commissioner for Establishments, Training and Pensions, Dr. Benson Oke, who flagged off a three-day training tagged: “State Revenue and The Treasury Single Account(TSA): A Win-Win Policy for Lagos State and Forensic Analysis and Fraud Detection in The Work Place,” held in Ikeja, Lagos, Southwest Nigeria on Tuesday, said government was determined to empower workers to effectively curb fraud in work places.

According to Oke, the Treasury Single Account , TSA, policy is all about prudential accounting for government resources in the form of revenues paid in by third parties, saying that in addition to the importance of accurate and immediately-accessible information to decision making, government should also bear in mind that democratic governments were required to provide effective financial information to stakeholders in a consistent and clear format.

Oke, who was represented by the Director of Training, Aruna Ayodeji added that the discussions on fraud detection and forensic analysis was ultimately about controls, saying that an integral part of proper accounting procedures rests on issues of controls and began with internal accountability structures.

The commissioner said the training would also expose staff to transactional reviews, which he explained, checked the validity and accuracy of transaction processing by comparing it in detail with expected results.

“Another important forensic and fraud detection control measure that this training will cover is General Computer Controls. Computer systems frequently have common areas of control and related control procedures referred to as general computer controls. These controls directly or indirectly affect all systems that operate within a computer-processing environment.

“General computer controls include the usual elements of effective internal control, that is, an individual or group responsible for control procedures and monitoring activities. Managers of the information systems function usually monitor the performance of general computer controls,” he said.

Oke further said an aspect of General Computer Control, which is Computer operations related to the day-to-day processing activities of the entity’s system and ensured that tasks were scheduled and processed as planned and that data were properly stored on the system or tapes, and reports were distributed in a timely and accurate fashion.

Also speaking, the Managing Director of Douglas and Payne Consulting Limited, the training facilitator, Oluyomi Diya, said the training that would help Lagos in dealing with issues that results into financial fraud, saying the workers after the training would be able to monitor account in a prudent and transparent manner.

-Kazeem Ugbodaga