Vital for all organisations to have internal audit – IIA president

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KUCHING: Establishing a professional internal audit should be a requirement for all organisations as this not only provides assurance but also helps organisations improve their business performance.

According to Institute of Internal Auditors Malaysia (IIA) president Datin Josephine Low, an internal audit should not be limited to large and medium-sized organisations but should include smaller ones as well as they may face equally complex environments and ever-changing business needs.

“The reality is fraud will remain in business,” she said when launching the two-day ‘2013 Corporate Fraud Conference in East Malaysia’ at Hilton Kuching yesterday.

The conference theme is ‘Fraud Risk Management: Make It Count’. It is the third conference on corporate fraud organised by IIA, and attended by around 70 delegates from both the public and private sectors.

Low said that it is management initiatives in their control process and enforcement that make fraudulent activities more difficult to take place.

“This Corporate Fraud Conference aims to provide you with insights on managing fraud risk, and feature the current and emerging trends, as well as how leading organisations are managing strategies for mitigation, investigation, response and recovery on reported frauds.”

In a press statement released Dec 5 last year, Transparency International Malaysia ranked Malaysia at number 54 on the International Corruption Perceptions Index out of 176 countries included in the study.

“Corruption is nothing new, and laws and regulations have been on the books for decades. However, as more organisations have expanded globally, the risks have also increased,” Low said.

“Internal auditors should assess opportunities for corruption at all levels and report such exposure to management. Internal auditors should consider corruption risks when developing their risk assessments for audit planning purposes.”

Also present was special advisor to Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) chief commissioner and head of Forensics Datuk IG Chandran FCA, who later presented a keynote address.

The first day of the conference was broken down into three plenary sessions – ‘Fraud Risk Management: Make It Count’ (panel session), ‘Building a Corporate Ethical Culture’ and ‘Dealing with Cyber Crime’.

Day two will consist of two master classes – ‘Fraud Within Supply Chain Management: Prevention is Cheaper Than Cure’ and ‘Preventing and Detecting Fraud’.