Whistleblowing Policy and Fraud Prevention and Detection of Listed Deposit Money Banks: Experience from Ekiti State, Nigeria

Abstract

Nigeria is a country engulfed in and defined by fraud and other forms of corruption. This has had a significant detrimental impact on the Deposit Money Banks in Nigeria and the country’s reputation around the world. To this end, the federal government launched whistleblowing policy in 2015 to fight corruption. The whistleblowing initiative aims to encourage Nigerians with useful information about a breach of financial legislation, mishandling of government funds and assets to disclose it. It was considered fit to assess the effectiveness of whistleblowing policy on fraud prevention and detection on listed Deposit Money Banks in Ekiti State, Nigeria since the policy was formulated. The study's participants were all core and managerial workers of Ekiti State's fourteen listed deposit money institutions. The study's sample of 100 respondents was carefully chosen. The instrument utilized to obtain the essential data for the investigation was a questionnaire. The instrument was evaluated by two specialists, and the instrument's reliability was ensured, yielding a reliability coefficient of 0.89, indicating that the results are accurate enough to elicit responses for the study. Only 88 of the 100 questionnaires distributed were returned, indicating an 88 percent response rate. The data was examined using inferential statistics such as chi-square, analysis of variance ANOVA, and multiple linear regression. The study's findings discovered that there exist a positive significant relationship between whistle blowing policy and monitoring and mitigation of management and outsider fraud in Nigerian deposit money banks, as well as a significant impact on the monitoring and mitigation of employee fraud in Nigerian deposit money banks. The research advised that deposit money bank management continue to implement whistleblowing policies to prevent and detect fraud before it occurs, because is as an effective and efficient way of controlling the occurrences of fraud in deposit money bank.