Curbing Occupational and Financial Reporting Fraud: An Alternative Paradigm
Stanley Ogoun, Lawyer C. Obara

Abstract
The increasing rate and character of occupational fraud and in particular fraudulent financial reporting has continued to attract global attention. This virus appears to be evolving a more complex character and increasingly becoming immune to the global efforts at containing it. Various efforts have been evolved towards addressing this global challenge, especially the celebrated Sarbanes-Oxley Act which came into effect in 2002 in the USA and the extreme legal measures of life imprisonment and the death penalty in some legal jurisdictions around the world for fraudulent activities. All these measures have recorded various degrees of success, but none had been able to contain its mutation and spread. All forms of governments, public and private sector led business institutions, from the very small to the multinational corporations, have not been spared by its scourge, hence the continuous global effort at bridging this gap. Admitted that it is a human phenomenon necessitated by the vagaries of our world, its continuous mutation and spread cannot be allowed to go unchecked. It is against this background that we are proposing an alternative paradigm, not only to the existing financial reporting supply chain, but also at the accounting data capturing and gathering stage, of the accounting information system. This was predicated on a review of the existing frameworks for fraud prevention and control. This current study is proposing a post ante approach to dealing with the incidence of occupational fraud and in particular FFR. This is anchored on the philosophy of preventive maintenance for equipments or preemptive strikes in military warfare which are considered to be much better than the post mortem approaches which might have irreparable consequences as evidenced in several instances.

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