OFT suffers its own accounting fraud
Trade regulator reveals £250,000 internal fraud
Office of Fair Trading
The Office of Fair Trading (OFT), the government body set up to warn
consumers against unfair trading practices and fraud, has been forced to admit
that it lost £250,000 in a suspected internal accounting fraud.
The embarrassing details were revealed in the supplementary notes to the
annual report for the year ended 31 March 2009.
Under the heading ‘Losses and Special Payments’ at the end of the document,
it was revealed that £97,000 of the loss occurred in the 2007/08 year, with the
remaining £153,000 coming in the 2008/09 year ‘due to an alleged fraud made
possible by a control weakness in the Accounts Payable process.’
The OFT has refused to comment as ‘the case is now subject to legal
proceedings.’