Forensic Accounting – A Multifaceted Standard for Cleaner Stewardship in Weak Regulatory Environments

Abstract

Many third world countries are saddled with either corruption or high corruption perception index due to weak regulatory environments. Too often statutory audit has shown passive attitude towards fraud fighting and failed to provide the public the needed assurance of their preparedness to stand up to corruption and fraud. The essence of forensic accounting concerns in-depth knowledge in Information Technology, the application of evidence-gathering accounting functions and audit skills for evidentiary purposes - whether documentary and testimonial or both, prosecution and settlements. With law,therefore, the practice of forensic accountingintersectsin two ways: the conduct -usually an infringement on the law, which is the focus of the engagement; and the procedures that impact the work of the accountant. In this research, the coefficient of correlation (r) of two data sets (X,Y) representing the opinion of the public on their increasingdissatisfaction with statutory audit in the fight against white-collar crimes and  public opinion on the extent to which forensic accounting can improve the situation to ensure cleaner accountingrespectively was found and interpreted to draw conclusions. The result, (correlation coefficient (r) – CORREL 0.36), indicates that forensic accounting has positive potential to tackle financial crimes in weak regulatory environments but the public would also largely doubt the socio-economic order that will ensure its effectiveness.

Keywords: Forensic, Accounting, engagement, audit, standards, expectation gap, control, fraud, white-collar crimes, weak, regulatory, environment.