CORPORATE FRAUD CONTROL AND PREVENTION SYSTEMS IN COMMERCIAL BANKS IN ENUGU STATE, NIGERIA
ABSTRACT
The major purpose of the study was to determine the corporate fraud control and prevention systems in commercial banks in Enugu State of Nigeria. The study adopted a survey research design. Eight research questions were answered while five hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The population of the study comprised 288 management staff in the 96 commercial bank branches operating in Enugu State. The entire population was studied. Structured questionnaire containing 97 items was used for the study. The questionnaire was subjected to face validation by experts. The questionnaire was pre-tested on 30 management staff in 10 commercial bank branches in Ebonyi State of Nigeria. Kuder-Richardson (K-R20) Reliability Coefficient of 0.96 and 0.99 were obtained for questionnaire items in sections B and C of the questionnaire respectively while Cronbach Alpha Reliability Coefficient of 0.99, 0.98, 0.98, 0.99, 0.99 and 0.98 were obtained respectively for the other six clusters in sections D to I. The questionnaire was administered personally by the researcher with the help of two trained research assistants. The research questions were answered using frequencies and percentages for research question one and two while mean and standard deviations were used for answering research question three to eight. The five null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance using t–test statistic. The problem of the study was that the corporate fraud control and prevention systems might not be adequately pravailable, utilized and effective in controlling and preventing fraudulent activities in the commercial banks. However, it was found and concluded that most of the corporate fraud control and prevention systems were available and utilized most times in the commercial banks and they were effective in controlling and preventing fraudulent activities in the banks. The commercial banks encountered many problems in the utilization of the corporate fraud control and prevention systems but many strategies for enhancing the effective utilization of the systems were identified. The result of the study would be used by Accounting Educators for guiding and counseling the management of commercial banks, bank customers, investors and other stakeholders of commercial banks especially for fraud control and prevention. It was recommended that the management of the commercial banks should regularly review and update the systems to ensure that they are relevant, adequate and effectively utilized. The management of commercial banks should also endeavour to ameliorate the identified problems encountered in the utilization of the corporate fraud control and prevention systems with the necessary strategies.