UAE to enrol more Emiratis in financial audit

Dubai: Emiratis have sought elite audit duties as part of a plan to increase the level of Emiratisation at the Financial Audit Authority to 80 per cent in the next three years, an official said.

Abdullah Mohammad Ghobash, director general of the Financial Audit Authority, said UAE was rated as one of the least corrupt countries in the Middle East and North Africa by the Berlin-based Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI) 2019.

“Fraud and corruption on public money in the government sector reached almost zero. The level of defence is very strong. We have a plan to increase the level of Emiratisation in the authority to 80 per cent in the next three years,” Ghobash said during the fifth edition of the Fraud Conference Middle East which began at at Madinat Jumeirah on Sunday.

“The authority provides training courses for employees of government and semi-government entities to refine their skills in the field of fraud,” Ghobash added.

The three-day conference organised by the General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs (GDRFA-Dubai) in cooperation with the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), drew 400 experts in the anti-fraud sector, including a group of accounting experts and specialists in internal auditing, governance and anti-fraud investigation.

The conference is being held within the framework of a comprehensive work programme of keynote addresses, seminars and panel sessions that focused on understanding the root causes of fraud and identifying best practices against fraud practices and their negative consequences for society.

“It is a distinguished event that includes experts and specialists in the field of anti-fraud, to highlight the risks and damages resulting from such practices and abuses. It is an opportunity to support efforts to find lasting solutions to establish accounting principles and come up with recommendations that will establish transparency and integrity as a main pillar in anti-fraud,” Major General Mohammad Al Marri, Director General of GDRFA-Dubai, said.

Bruce Dorris, President and CEO of the ACFE, expressed his happiness at hosting the 2020 ACFE Conference Middle East because of its importance in spreading knowledge in this field and building bridges of cooperation with all concerned authorities of anti-fraud.

“The conference will serve as an opportunity for experts and specialists in anti-fraud to meet and discuss the latest trends and tools in area of anti-fraud and monitoring,” Bruce said.

Loss due to fraud

Dr Alexander Wagner, a senior chair at the Swiss Finance Institute and an associate professor of finance at the University of Zurich, said during the conference, the total loss caused by 2,690 fraud cases in the world exceeded $7.1 billion (approximately Dh28 billion) in 2018, according to a global study on occupational fraud and abuse by ACFE. According to the report, the study only represents a tiny fraction of the frauds committed worldwide.