Summary
Taking from the Givers
Taking from the Givers discusses cases of fraud in humanitarian organizations. Just as any organization, these organizations are also prone to the usual internal control problems which may lead to cases of fraud. The author of this article, Krishna Menon, has worked as an auditor at an international humanitarian organization and has conducted audits in several countries such as Sudan, Kenya, and Nigeria. Krishna discusses a fraud case which she has worked on where “Sam”, the financial assistant for an international humanitarian organization conspired with a bank employee to supply himself with some extra money amounting to $120,000 in three years. According to her, there were many red flags such as the fact that frequent payments were being charged to payables and many payment vouchers for disbursing these allowances weren’t available in the monthly box files containing vouchers and couldn’t be traced. Moreover, when Sam was called for questioning he would constantly be unavailable. When they finally did meet him, there were signs that something funny was going on. Sam had the latest phones and other expensive toys which each cost more than his monthly salary. The review conducted showed that many of the procedures weren’t carried out as per the organization’s policies and instructions. For example; the office was using several checkbooks, a large number of checks weren’t in the name of the payee, bank reconciliations were not satisfactorily performed, etc. There was also evidence of poor record keeping. Sam was able to do so mostly because he was rarely supervised and seldom took leave time. Further examinations showed a pattern of abused, forgery and collusion with the local bank staff.
The following recommendations were made to management: (1) Immediately reintroduce a diligent and thorough supervisory review of all financial