{"id":14605,"date":"2022-05-17T10:01:25","date_gmt":"2022-05-17T10:01:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/banks-react-to-malpractice-allegations"},"modified":"2022-05-17T10:25:48","modified_gmt":"2022-05-17T10:25:48","slug":"banks-react-to-malpractice-allegations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/banks-react-to-malpractice-allegations","title":{"rendered":"Banks react to malpractice allegations"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Lesotho. <\/strong><\/span>The Bankers Association of Lesotho (BAL) had rebut the ongoing malpractice allegations as reported by the July 22 International Monetary Fund (IMF) report on the local banking industry.<\/p>\n

The IMF report titled: Kingdom of Lesotho: Technical Assistance Report- Implementation of Base II holds that the local banks enlist the services of foreign audit firms, with no presence in Lesotho<\/p>\n

thereby challenging its compliance with accounting standards. This report is produced following the IMF staff tour of duty, IMF AFRITAC South which offered the Technical Assistance<\/p>\n

Mission on Risk Based Supervision in March last year at the request of the Central Bank of Lesotho (CBL). The IMF mission report reads pertinent part,<\/p>\n

\u201cbanks must have annual financial statements in accordance with International<\/p>\n

Standards Auditing (ISA),\u2026however while reviewing the financials of some banks, the mission found that there seems to be a local banking practice of having a Big 4 [collective term for the four multinational accounting firms;<\/p>\n

Deloitte, KPMG, Ernst Young (EY) and Pricehousewater Coopers (PwC)] audit firm, which with no offices in Lesotho using a small Lesotho audit firm, which<\/p>\n

otherwise would not likely be able to perform as auditor of a bank, to take full legal responsibility for signing the auditor\u2019s opinion expressing compliance with IFRS [International Financial Reporting Standards] and ISA<\/p>\n

[International Standards of Auditing] on financial statements that do not<\/p>\n

comply with these international standards. The mission flagged this with the Supervisor, who knew about it, highlighting its implications. \u201d The Bankers Association of Lesotho(BAL) issued a statement this past Saturday arguing that the practice of using two audit firms is not unique to Lesotho. BAL further said the practice is not \u201cprohibited\u201d by the international auditing standards and Lesotho Institute of Accounts (LIA). \u201cWe respectively differ with IMF on this statement, and our firm position is that as a financial services sector , we are fully compliant with CBL [Central Bank of Lesotho] regulations and other<\/p>\n

international financial reporting instruments\u2026\u201d reads BAL statement. Established in 2006, BAL is formed of four commercial banks, Standard Lesotho Bank, Nedbank,First National Bank (FNB) and<\/p>\n

Lesotho Post Bank (LPB). Following the report by a local online edition, CBL responded to the malpractice allegations and said it \u201cwishes to set the record straight and inform members of the public that none of the Banks<\/p>\n

in Lesotho use the big 4 audit firms to do their audits and later use a local audit firm to issue and sign off the auditor\u2019s report. \u201d \u201cIt is worth mentioning that the Financial<\/p>\n

Institutions Act (FIA) of 2012 does not prohibit approved local audit firms from partnering with foreign audit firms. The International Standards of Auditing (ISAs), nor the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS)<\/p>\n

prohibit firms from partnering where there are perceived capacity gaps. The allegations of malpractice are therefore unfounded,\u201d reads the CBL statement in pertinent part.<\/p>\n

Also, taking stock of these developments, the Lesotho Institute of Accounts (LIA) said \u201conly auditors registered can sign the audit reports in the country.<\/p>\n

\u201d It further highlights that it does not have any knowledge of local audit firms signing off reports on behalf of their foreign counterparts. \u201cThe Institute is aware of partnerships that<\/p>\n

some registered audit firms in Lesotho have with firms outside the country to carry out some audit assignments. LIA however is not aware of incidences where<\/p>\n

local audit firms signed audit reports without being engaged in the audit process. \u201d Despite not being engaged throughout the processes, the Lesotho accountancy regulatory body promised to carry out investigations on alleged malpractice by the banks and engage the IMF to \u201cestablish the basis of its conclusions in the matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Lesotho<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Lesotho. The Bankers Association of Lesotho (BAL) had rebut the ongoing malpractice allegations as reported by the July 22 International Monetary Fund (IMF) report on the local banking industry. The IMF report titled: Kingdom of Lesotho: Technical Assistance Report- Implementation of Base II holds that the local banks enlist the services of foreign […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":14604,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5,8,16],"tags":[233,246,278,245],"class_list":["post-14605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-economy","category-homepage-english","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-lesotho","tag-bank","tag-lesotho"],"yoast_head":"\nBanks react to malpractice allegations - Lesotho<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Bankers Association of Lesotho (BAL) had rebut the ongoing malpractice allegations as reported by the July 22 Intern ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/banks-react-to-malpractice-allegations\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Banks react to malpractice allegations\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Bankers Association of Lesotho (BAL) had rebut the ongoing malpractice allegations as reported by the July 22 Intern ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/banks-react-to-malpractice-allegations\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Lesotho\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-05-17T10:01:25+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-05-17T10:25:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/sites\/62\/2022\/05\/postQueueImg_26-62837811e9f88.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"540\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/banks-react-to-malpractice-allegations#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/banks-react-to-malpractice-allegations\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Banks react to malpractice allegations\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-05-17T10:01:25+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-05-17T10:25:48+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/banks-react-to-malpractice-allegations\"},\"wordCount\":617,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/banks-react-to-malpractice-allegations#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/sites\/62\/2022\/05\/postQueueImg_26-62837811e9f88.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Lesotho\",\"Bank\",\"Lesotho\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"economy\",\"homepage-english\",\"twitter\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/banks-react-to-malpractice-allegations#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/banks-react-to-malpractice-allegations\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/banks-react-to-malpractice-allegations\",\"name\":\"Banks react to malpractice allegations - 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