Court Report: Checks and balances or a box-tick?
Hamish McNicol discusses the Serious Fraud Office's warning to companies about employee fraud. With special feature audio.
The Serious Fraud Office has come out with a warning to companies following a former Auckland Airport employee’s admission to a $1.8 million fraud.
And the airport says it has since completed a “thorough review” and made changes to protect the company, after the employee stole by changing client bank account numbers to her own.
Teremoana Kimiangatau, 53, this week pleaded guilty in the Auckland District Court to three charges of obtaining by deception laid by the SFO.
This followed Auckland Airport announcing in February that it had sacked an employee and called in police after discovering many unauthorised transactions.
It then sought and was granted freezing orders against the then unnamed employee, which initially covered about $503,000 but were later extended to $1.84 million – the value of the fraud Ms Kimiangatau has pleaded guilty to.
Following the hearing, SFO director Julie Read said the offending shows “some environments” can present opportunities for this type of fraud.
“Checks and balances need to be in place to detect fraud and, most importantly, those checks need to be taken seriously as opposed to treating them as nothing more than a box-ticking exercise.
“Ms Kimiangatau’s responsibilities allowed her to pass invoices for authorisation many times and make changes to client information without being challenged.”
The airport then put out its own statement, saying it has “completed a thorough review of our internal processes and controls, and changes have been made to protect the company, its staff and its investors.”
Ms Kimiangatau will next appear in November.
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Thu, 28 Jul 2016
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Court Report: Checks and balances or a box-tick?
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