Corporate Fraud in Malaysia

Fraud in Malaysia is a major issue with almost half of companies reporting that they have been subject to economic crime during the past two years. I had no idea fraud was so wide spread in Malaysia and a reported 70% of it is committed by employees of the organisations.

There has been an increase in investment in recent years in fraud controls and the efforts made by regulators to attempt to reduce these scams however has proved unsuccessfully with levels much higher than seen in 2005.

To tackle the issue of fraud it is necessary to determine the reason why fraud is so high and the answer is it is a people issue. There needs to be change in the way employees think and therefore behave therefore companies need to give employees the confidence to do the right thing. There needs to be a new corporate culture that supports prevention systems and fraud control.

By changing this culture fraud should drastically reduce, the overall economy can improve and prosper and foreign investors and shareholders will have increased confidence in organisational operations and renewed trust. Major changes are required to create a new corporate culture and once a system and training procedure is decided on businesses can set to implement these and in time hopefully changes will occur. If a large number of Malaysian businesses and government organisations can implement a new strategy at the same time it will have a much bigger impact on the community that a couple of businesses trying to change practices at different times.

If I were in charge of a Malaysian business then I would seek to arrange a meeting or better still a conference with other businesses so I may discuss the problem with others and get ideas on how I could improve my business from initiatives that they have successfully implemented into their own businesses.

There are many producers of conferences that attract attendance from major corporations when large problems such as fraud are being discussed; the price of the ticket is more than worth the advice you will receive. The Marcus Evans scam conference proved successful for Malaysian attendees when it was held in January.