Graft bothers Justice James Ogoola

By Sylvia Juuko

JUSTICE James Ogoola, the Principal Judge, has decried the rising levels of graft in the country.

“We have seen escalating increase in corruption and fraud, in unethical conduct, in failing corporate governance and in increased litigation concerning financial loss, quite often accompanied by some dazzling wizardry accounting,” he said.

Ogoola noted that nothing had changed since he aired his view two years ago that society was “rotten to the core.”

“The country is now acutely numb, numbed to the marrow.

“We have lost all feeling, all sensation to the corruption prick. We as a country are in dire danger of becoming immune to corruption.”

Ogoola was opening the annual national internal audit conference at the Commonwealth Resort Munyonyo on Wednesday.

Listing graft cases since he chaired the probe into Global Fund monies, the judge cited other cases including NSSF funds and the ongoing queries into CHOGM projects.

“All cases show mega proportions, all involving a disproportionate number of the lofty and mighty in the land.

“Financial corruption is only the tip of the iceberg. Much worse corruption in its widest definition lurks in every sinew and moral temporal and even spiritual life of our society.”

He observed that if internal auditors adhered to basic principles of internal auditing, corporate workplace would be transformed.

“This is because professional internal auditing is firmly anchored in the veritable virtues of integrity, objectivity, confidentiality and competence.”

He called on internal auditors to be diligent and vigilant in detecting fraud.

“We require you to play a more proactive role at two essential fronts.

“One, to deal with misdeeds in the public sector and also in helping the private sector to grow.”

Pat Cunningham, the executive director of the South African Fraud Prevention Services, told auditors that fraud could be detected through corporate governance, risk management and ethics.

He said that to combat risks, organisations should include risk management in performance reviews.

“Everybody in the organisation should be responsible for managing fraud risk. It should be included in key performance indicators with rewards and bonuses given for fraud prevention.”

Cunningham advised auditors to ensure organisations had ethics policy where all employees participated in its drafting.

“If you don’t have an ethics policy in your organisation where everybody’s involved, you will have fraud in your business.”

He called upon auditors to keep fraud risk registers to facilitate identification, monitoring and management of risks.