Tendering Fraud Risk Factors

The presence of factors such as those listed below will render a Government agency susceptible to procurement fraud.

1. Lack of Awareness

Lack of awareness at the management level, of the dangers of procurement fraud and the necessary defenses.

2. No top down commitment

No top down commitment to root out and deal with instances of procurement fraud; this means taking effective and punitive and actions.

3.Lack of financial control

The failure of the governing body to implement sound financial procedures for financial control, to ensure that all staff are aware of the need to comply with them, and are trained in their use.

Inadequate internal control

Financial control systems, whish do now allow for adequate internal check.

a. Inadequate monitoring.

b. Reconciliation are not completed regularly or independently checked.

c. Expense claims, invoices etc are not property checked.

d. Inadequate separation of duties.

Inadequate Financial information.

Officers are not given sufficient detail to identify anomalies, e.g. rapid growth in expenditure, against a particular budget head.

Officers are given too much information; this can mask significant changes and make identifying them difficult.

Information not received timely.

Information not relevant or properly formatted.

Poor Security controls

Inadequate control of access to safe, computer hardware, controlled stationary, stores etc.

Inadequate control over passwords and leaving computers logged on to systems when unattended.

It has been said that there are three requirements which need to be met to reduce the risk of procurement fraud; Good Ethics, Good People, Good System.