UTILISATION OF FORENSIC AUDITING TECHNIQUES FOR FRAUD DETECTION IN LARGE SCALE BUSINESS ORGANISIONS IN DELTA STATE, NIGERIA

This study on utilisation of forensic auditing investigation techniques for fraud detection in large scale business organisations in Delta State was necessitated by the growing incidence of frauds that are crippling businesses and socio-economic development of the state. Two research questions guided the study and two null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. Related literature to the study were reviewed. Descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. The population of the study was 260 accounting staff. A sample size of 160 was selected for the study using simple random sampling technique. A four-point rating scale questionnaire developed by the researchers was used for data collection. Cronbach Alpha method was used to determine the reliability of the questionnaire and this yielded reliability coefficient values of 0.83 and 0.88 respectively for the sections with an overall reliability of 0.86. Data were analyzed using mean and standard deviation to ascertain the homogeneity of the respondents while t-test and analysis of variance were used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The results showed that the accounting staff lowly utilised background investigation technique for fraud detection while investigative interview was moderately utilized. Furthermore, it was found that types and status of organization in NSE did not significantly influence their ratings on utilisation of background investigation and investigative interview for fraud detection. From the findings of the study, it was concluded that the accounting staff did not utilize forensic auditing investigation techniques for fraud detection in large-scale business organisations as required. Based on the findings, the researcher recommended among others, employees of large-scale business organisations should endeavour to support forensic auditors with relevant background information that could lead to fraud detection to ensure that the occurrence of fraud is minimized