And in the East African region, the Africa Fraud Barometer report released on Wednesday says Kenya has the most cases of fraud reported.
The term “fraud” is used generically to describe all offences of dishonesty.
“In Kenya, we saw a general increase in the number of fraud cases,” said Mr William Oelofse, KPMG’s East Africa director responsible for Forensic Services.
“We are very active in the financial sector, both banking and insurance, and there is certainly increased activity. The perpetrators are normally employees with assistance from third parties. We also noted that IT departments are more often involved, with some input from operational people,” Mr Oelofse said.
The reported fraud cases in other East African countries, — Ethiopia, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda — had decreased.
“There are clear indications that both banks and insurance companies are taking fraud risk management more seriously. They are not only talking about it but there are actual steps taken to implement some of the fraud risk management controls,” said Mr Oelofse.
Overall cases
The report, however, says the overall cases of fraud in the continent had decreased from 503 in the first half of 2012 to 348 cases in the second half of 2012.
This is the third consecutive period where a decrease in reported fraud and corruption cases has been recorded.
In the same period, the value of fraud increased from $2 billion (Sh168 billion) to $4 billion (Sh335 billion).
Nigeria still has the highest value of reported fraud cases with $3 billion, an increase of 50 per cent.
- Daily Nation
