Abstract
The role forensic accounting plays in detracting crime and corruption in both public sector and private sector is the major focus of these journal. The objective of the research work seeks to discover the role a forensic accountant can play in the contest against crime by applying its investigative skills, providing litigation support service and documentation and reporting. The research design employed was the survey research. Data were majorly collected from primary sources. A well-structured 5 point likert scale questionnaire was used to elucidate information from the respondents, these results were analyzed using tables, simple percentages, and statistical analysis techniques chi-square and the results was used to validate or invalidate the hypotheses. The results of the empirical findings show that forensic accountants are relevant in investigating crime and corruption in both private and public sector in Nigeria. Forensic accountants play a role in litigation support services in organizational sector(s), and forensic accountants are relevant in documentation and reporting. It was detected that the forensic accountants play a significant role in shortening crime and corrupt practices in any sector since they provide a mechanism to hold people answerable, such that those who manage resources in a fiduciary capacity do not easily abuse that trust without detection. Amongst other proffered solutions, it was recommended that accounting professionals should always be proactive such that the members of the profession in Nigeria are kept abreast of emerging technologies, especially in the area of forensic accounting. Keywords: Forensic Accounting, forensic accountants,economic and financial crime DOI : 10.7176/RJFA/10-16-11 Publication date : August 31 st 2019
Highlights
Even though the origin of Forensic Accounting could be traced to 1817 (Crumbley, 2001) and was coined in 1946 by Peloubet (Joshi, 2003), it is gaining dominance in fighting against economic and financial crimes
The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) indicated that fraud accounting professionals would be in high demand in few years to come and developed Certified Financial Forensics (CFF) to increase the expertise of Certified Public Accountants (American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, 2008)
A survey research design is used in the study and the population of the study consists of 80 staff drawn from key government parastatals like the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Federal Inland Revenue, Accounting Firms and Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)
Summary
Even though the origin of Forensic Accounting could be traced to 1817 (Crumbley, 2001) and was coined in 1946 by Peloubet (Joshi, 2003), it is gaining dominance in fighting against economic and financial crimes. Bologna and Lindquist (1995) as quoted by Chariri (2009) stated that as an investigator, a forensic accountant can be seen as those who are specialist in fraud detection, and in documenting exactly the kind of evidence required for successful criminal prosecution; able to work in complex regulatory and litigation environments; and with reasonable accuracy, can reconstruct missing, destroyed, or deceptive accounting records As economists, they are effective at economic loss, damage, and social harm estimates; familiar with the assumptions, algorithms, and calculations in econometric models and opportunity cost scenarios; can measure and quantify such things as loss of goodwill and reputation.
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