Nigeria loses a quarter of its annual budget or N2.5 trillion annually to public sector corruption, the Society for Forensic Accountants and Fraud Prevention (SFAFP) has said.
The group identified the top ways the atrocities were being committed as: unlawful use of public assets for private advances; underpayment of taxes and duties on export as well as import.
According to the group, other ways were fraud and embezzlement; payment of salary to ghost workers; bribery and extortion; payment for air supply (goods or services not provided or rendered); over and under-invoicing; fraudulent court awards of financial compensations above damage suffered.
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These came to the fore during SFAFP’s virtual induction of 192 associates over the weekend.
The President of SFAFP, Iliyasu Gashinbaki vowed that the society would assist in plugging the leakages by providing technical support to the public and private sectors.
Gashinbaki explained that the menace was not peculiar to Nigeria as other African nations were battling with it too.
He added that recent studies have shown that most African governments struggle with the huge debt burden, in addition to huge loss of revenue due to fraud and corruption consistently draining their little resources.