The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas Institute of Chartered Accountants (BICA) president yesterday said tough economic times often result in an increase in fraudulent activity as persons turn to such activities to “make ends meet”.

Diveane Bowe told Tribune Business he does “not feel as strongly” as his colleague, Craig Gomez, regarding real and expected increases in forensic audit activity arising out of the COVID-19 pandemic.

He said: “When you have a depressed economic environment, like what we have with COVID-19, and this would not be specific to The Bahamas but regionally and globally, there’s a tendency - when people aren’t able to make ends meet, they are generally a lot more relaxed in their personal views and values, and their primary concern is to feed their families.”

Mr Gomez and other accountants also predicted an uptick in forensic accounting assignments to track and trace monies siphoned off from the Government’s COVID-19 unemployment benefits payments and other such support schemes. A manager at the South Andros National Insurance Board (NIB) office was last year charged with fraud, along with 14 other individuals, relating to unemployment benefit claims.

Mr Bowe, however, said: “When a control environment is not operating as it typically did because COVID-19 changed a lot of things, and it changed fairly quickly, the change in control environment typically takes time to catch up to those lapses. People can dip into them and take advantage of those lapses. I think this is more of an environment issue more than anything else. It’s not just in our country but it is going on all over the world.”

The BICA chief added that what happened at NIB is “not very surprising”, and said: “When you have a situation like a large-scale disaster, it is the Government’s first response to go out and help people, but in the process of helping people a few things may slip through the cracks. This is an ongoing situation because if it was perfect from day one then no one would get aid.”

Responding to questions about the public procurement weaknesses highlighted in the US Investment Climate Statement on The Bahamas, Mr Bowe said: “Going back for many years, this has been a bone of contention for the Government and has been pointed out by all of the related agencies from the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and so on and so forth.

“The Government is in the process now of trying to cure this. What I understand is that they do have a process in place, so it’s not fair to say that they don’t. The question is now how do they go about making it stronger?”

The Ministry of Finance, in response to the US Investment Climate Statement, said the Government had already passed procurement legislation in February this year and was now moving to implement it by September 1.

Mr Bowe, though, said he had never encountered any issues when participating in past government procurement processes.

He added: “The Government even issues a procurement notice now that lets you know something is coming down the pike even before they issue a RFP (Request for Proposal), but this is specifically for the projects my company is involved in and have sought to bid on. I can’t give a broader view other than that. From my perspective, the Government seems to follow a defined process of procurement now.”