• The PwC Global Economic Crime and Fraud survey shows that 63 per cent of respondents having experienced fraud within their organisation in the last two years.
• However, respondents reported a lower incidence rate than their global counterparts in crimes such as HR fraud, tax fraud, government relief fraud and ESG reporting fraud.
Image: FILE
Organisations within East Africa have been advised to carry out continuous risk management to mitigate the emergence of new types of fraud and economic crimes.
This follows survey findings by PwC which revealed that fraud levels within organizations in the region are notably high, with 63 per cent of respondents having experienced fraud within their organisation in the last two years against 46 per cent of respondents globally.
“Today’s fraud landscape is more complex than ever, presenting continually evolving challenges for organisations to contend with,” Muniu Thoithi, PwC’s Deals and Consulting Leader in Eastern Africa said.
The PwC Global Economic Crime and Fraud Survey (GECS) 2022 was themed ‘Protecting the Perimeter: The rise of external fraud’.
The survey introduced several economic crime categories that were not covered by previous issues including supply chain fraud, disinformation and misinformation fraud, ESG reporting fraud and government relief fraud.
It found that respondents in the Eastern Africa region reported higher incidence rates for more prevalent crimes such as customer fraud, asset misappropriation, procurement fraud, bribery and corruption and supply chain fraud.
However, respondents in Eastern Africa reported a lower incidence rate than their global counterparts in crimes such as HR fraud, tax fraud, government relief fraud and ESG reporting fraud.
“When it comes to actual experiences of fraud and corruption, we continue to see a widening gap between respondents from Eastern Africa and the rest of the world,” PwC Kenya Forensics leader John Kamau said.
A significant 70 per cent of global respondents experienced new types of economic crime which can be attributed to Covid-19 compared to only 30 per cent of respondents in Eastern Africa.
Crimes experienced largely related to cybercrime and conduct risk which stemmed from individual actions and include customer fraud and supply chain fraud.
As regards Cybercrime, the survey found that the incidence rate has not changed significantly over the last 10 years even as the disruption resulting from these types of fraud escalated dramatically.
“Between 2018 and 2022, reported Cybercrime incidence reduced by 4 per cent despite the number of respondents having reported it as the most disruptive economic crime almost doubling,” the study showed.
This might suggest that cybercriminals are becoming more sophisticated and perpetrating fewer but more lucrative cyber-attacks, the report said.