Authors: Titus Gandu Obadiah, Musa Adeiza Farouk
Abstract
The prevalence of financial fraud within government agencies has become a major challenge in Nigeria, necessitating a closer examination of the role of forensic accounting skills in enhancing fraud detection mechanisms. Utilizing a survey approach, the study assessed the current level of forensic accounting expertise within these MDAs and its correlation with the efficacy of fraud detection. The research aims to identify the effect of forensic accounting skills on financial fraud detection in state MDAs. Forensic Accounting skills is represented with investigative and auditing skills, legal/litigation skills, analytical skills, technical skills and ethical skills, while financial fraud detection was used as the dependent variable. Multiple regression technique was used, while Stata 17 was utilized as tool for data analysis. Primary source of data was employed and were obtained from the questionnaire designed to elicit information from the respondents. Targeted population of the study was 2500 staff. Using Yaro Yamane (1967) formula, 380 copies of questionnaires were administered and retrieved for analysis. Robustness tests such as normality test of error term, Cronbach’s Alpha, multicollinearity and heteroscedasticity tests were conducted to validate the results. The findings revealed that legal/litigation skills and technical skills have significant positive effects on financial fraud detection of Ministries, Department and Agencies in Nigeria, while Investigative and auditing skill and analytical skills were found to have negative and significant effects on financial fraud detection of Ministries, Department and Agencies in Nigeria. However, ethical skill has insignificant but negative effect on financial fraud detection of Ministries, Department and Agencies in Nigeria.
Keywords: Forensic accounting, financial fraud, fraud detection