Even Singapore has had its share of accounting scandals, which involved China Aviation Oil, ACCS, Informatics and Citiraya.

Now the latest case involves the National Kidney Foundation (NKF), where irregular transactions were not discovered by its auditor, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC). As a result, accusations have been unleashed on the accounting profession that auditors are negligent in their work.

However, Mr Tan Boen Eng, President of the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Singapore said that, “there is a limit to what an auditor can do. You have to look at the terms of reference. When anything happens, the finger always points to the auditors. This has always been the case. But we have to put the matter in perspective. We have to see what is the role of the auditor, that is to give a true and fair view. An auditor is not there to investigate fraud.”

Here, in the reporting, corporate governance was emphasized upon and that the argument is that its should be the responsibility of the Management of the Company.