Cronograma de actividades

62 Wolfe and Hermanson (2004) stated that position and role owned by the employee may perfect his way to breach the organizational trust. Findings of the analysis of public companies carried out by Beasley, Carcello, Hermanson and Lapidesin 2001, revealed that over 70% of the fraud cases involved CEOs of the companies. They also reported that many organizations did not implement sufficient checks and balances to mitigate their CEO's capabilities to influence and perpetuate frauds. Also, managers or executives committed 46%

of the frauds based on the Association‘s recent study. The fraudster has a strong ego and great confidence that he will not be detected, or believes that he could easily take himself out of trouble if caught. Such confidence or arrogance can affect one's cost-benefit analysis of engaging in fraud. The more confident the person, the lower the estimated cost of fraud will be (Wolfe and Hermanson, 2004). In an article entitled, "The Human Face of Fraud" it is noted that one of the common personality types among fraudsters is the ego. An egoistic person refers to someone who is driven to succeed at all costs, self-absorbed, self-confident and narcissistic admiration and a lack of empathy for others(Duffield and Grabosky, 2001).

Individuals with this disorder believe they are superior or unique, and they are likely to have inflated views of their own accomplishments and abilities

63 eye on delivering more appropriate, efficient and effective public service is the hallmark of good governance. Osisioma (2009) defines corporate governance in these contexts:

i. It is concerned with creating a balance between economic and social goals and between individual and command goals while encouraging efficient use of resources, accountability in the use of power and stewardship, and aligningthe interest of individuals corporations and society;

ii. The processes, systems, practice and procedures as well as the formal and informal rules that governs institutions, the manner in which these rules and regulations are applied and followed, the relationship that these rules and regulations determine or create, and the nature of these relationships.

The impact of the Act in fraud and financial crime reduction in the public sector cannot be accurately determined. For example, in the UK, the first corporate governance report and code of best practice is considered to be the Cadbury Report in 1992, which was produced in response to a string of corporate collapses.

Dandago (2001) defines accountability as the ability to give explanations or reasons regarding what one does at any given time; it is about the ability to satisfactorily account for whatever has been entrusted into an officer‘s care. According to Johnson (1996) as cited by Onyeanu (2005), accountability means the obligation to answer for a responsibility that has been conferred. Bovens (2004) describes public accountability as the obligation of an actor to publicly explain and justify conduct to some significant order. This usually involves not just information about performance, but also the possibility of debate and judgment and the imposition of formal or informal sanctions in case of poor performance. Popoola (2008) opines that accountability is a more complex notion implying a due and proper rendering of

64 accounts. According to him, it entails fiscal accountability, process accountability (demonstrating that the organization has achieved what it sets out to achieve) and programmed accountability, which confirms that the institution/organization has acted in accordance with its mission statement.

The concept of transparency therefore entails the dissemination of factual information that the public has a legal right to access at any given moment. This involves a genuine communication policy which includes the publication of detailed reports which set out an organization‘s financial position and financial management principles and disclose internal decision making structures, operational methodologies and details of ongoing and proposed projects and initiatives. As noted by Pollitt and Bouchaert (2000), the Thatcher-government in United Kingdom introduced the New Public Management (NPM) – an ideology that public accountability is both an instrument and a goal. It is an instrument to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of public governance, but it has gradually also become a goal in itself. Public accountability has become an ideograph, a rhetorical symbol for good governance.

In Nigeria, the Fiscal Responsibility Act (2007) was introduced as panacea for public accountability and good governance to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency in the public sector. The Senate screened the Commissioners in September 2008 which in essence signposts the beginning of a journey to public accountability and hence, good governance.

The need for employing appropriate procedures and techniques to combat fraud in Nigeria is necessary in order to restore investors‘ confidence in an audited financial statement. Thus, accountants andauditors are expected to know and realize that the public continues to expect a low rate of audit failures resulting in corporate governance dysfunction. Thisrequires that

65 the auditors must plan and perform their audit in a manner that will minimize the risk of undetectedmaterial misstatements. The accountant is under a duty to conduct his work in a manner that does not betray theconfidence which he command.

Similarly, Farber (2005) finds that fraud firms have poor governance relative to no-fraud firms fewer independent boardmembers, fewer audit committee meetings, fewer financial experts on the audit committee, asmaller percentage of Big 4 auditing firms, and a higher percentage of CEOs who are alsochairman of the board. The results are consistent with independent corporate governance mechanismsbeing more effective in the monitoring function.

Abbott, Parker and Peter (2004)address the impact of audit committee characteristics:

independence,activity level, and financial expertise on the likelihood of financial statements being restated andalso fraud. The authors examine two different groups of firms: 88 firms that restated their financialstatements from 1991-1999 as well as 44 firms reporting fraudulently, both with matchedsamples. The independence and activity level of the audit committee are negatively associatedwith the occurrence of restatement. There is also a negative association between an audit committeethat includes at least one member with financial expertise and the occurrence of restatement.The results are similar for the fraud sample in that companies having an audit committeewith at least one member with financial expertise are less likely to file fraudulent financial statements.

In summary, academic research hasdocumented that firms with a weak corporate governance structure are more likely to reportfraudulent financial information. The higher incidence of fraud among these firms is at least in part due to the greater opportunities associated with a

66 poor governance structure, where corporategovernance is one of the controls recognized to address the risk of management override.