Paper houses

Paper houses

Some jobs must be more hyped up then they should be. ‘Recommending’ businesses to do better just doesn’t sound that exciting to Kipp.

March 31, 2011 2:23 by Precious de Leon

Okay, we use the word ‘reprimand’ here loosely. It’s actually ‘recommendations’. It’s really more like a soft slap on the wrist. But hey, at least we know ADAA’s alive. Maybe not kicking…but at least alive.

According the article on The National, these companies were asked “to issue more timely financial statements, use better data for calculating their valuations and improve the quality of audits.”

The ADAA was initially set up to investigate corruption and set up anti-fraud programmes. Sounds exciting, doesn’t it? But somewhere along the line, this agency ended up giving ‘recommendations’ to have better quality audits and data.

Of the 700 companies, 142 were marked “significant improvement required” and needed immediate rectification by the companies or entities involved—more than double the number from last year.

The National reports “the ADAA was involved in corruption cases last year, including an allegation that the head of insurance at Abu Dhabi Water and Electricity Authority had embezzled nearly Dh300 million (US$81.6m) in the form of bribes given by companies in exchange for contracts.”

Kipp supposes there’s no ‘crime’ too small for this group. Incomplete documentation must be akin to a gateway drug, in that perfectly disorganised documentation may throw the scent off any fraudulent paper trail.

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Tags: Abu Dhabi, accountability, authority, fraud, government, paper trail, politics, UAE