Cyprus has now made itself an active part of the world’s largest anti-fraud community with Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, the world’s largest anti-fraud organization, announcing its inaugural assembly in the island country.
Speaking at a press conference, ACFE Cyprus explained that its aim is to play a constructive role in observing, identifying and eliminating fraud-related happenings in Cyprus. It added the Cyprus chapter intends to act as a force of meaningful change, and help in reducing, if not fully preventing instances of fraud and corruption in Cyprus, and well as helping to promote training in the field and impart both skills and knowledge to members.
Also present at the assembly, was Georgos Zornas, Internal Audit Director at the Bank of Cyprus Group, the main supporter of the new initiative. The director spoke at the occasion, describing the ACFE’s role at length and analyzing the goals it plans to achieve in Cyprus, adding that they while they have made a step in the right direction, they still “have a long way to go,” before they can safely speak to have established an effective governance mechanism in public as well as organizations.
In his speech, Mr. Zornas mentioned the PwC’s annual report, according to which, around 24 percent of participating Cypriot organizations were seen to have no proper ethics training program in place, whereas 42 percent were seen to have not performed any fraud risk assessment.
He also listed numerous fraud and corruption-related incidents which involved well-regarded politicians and senior state officials.
