examining doctor

The most difficult about writing a weekly blog, is not achieving 200 words, it's not finding a good subject, but it's putting the first sentence on the empty page.

I already thought about writing a blog about examining doctors, but I wasn't sure if I could find enough information about the topic. But this week there were 2 reason for writing about doctor audits. The first reason: in Social law class we treaded the subject. Secondly there's a possibility my mom gets an audit one of these days.

If an employee is too ill to work the doctor can pescribe some days off. This means the employer has to pay a fee to his employee even thoug the employee isn't ill. But when the employer doubts about the accuracy of the prescription he can ask for an audit. Another doctor comes visit the employee. When this doctor decides the employee isn't ill enough to stay home, the doctor gives a negative advice. This means the employee should get back to work.

On the one handle I can understand an employer wants to be sure his employee is ill before he pays the fee. Because it would be a huge cost if he has to pay fees to employees who aren't legally absent. On the other it should be unnecessary to organize a second control because a doctor should only prescribe days off if it's really necessary. And if every doctor writes his prescriptions honourable, doctor audits are no longer required.

Nigerian anger over China deaths

Nigeria MPs want to do an audit to look how many Chinese people live illegal in the country. It’s maybe strange but it has its reason. About 20 000 Nigerians live legal in China and there is an unknown number of Nigerians who lives illegal in China.

About 700 Nigerians are in prison accused of drug or fraud offences and because they stay illegal in the country. But there is maltreatment of Nigerians in China and certainly in prison. A Nigerian men died recently because he run away during a protest action for a better care of the Nigerian prisoners.

China also asked to cremate 30 bodies of which they claimed that they can’t find the family of them.

Al this proposals make the MPs angry. They ask the government to not give the permission. They find it inhuman that there are so many Nigerian people are maltreated in foreign parts.

They hope on a harmonious diplomatic cooperation between Nigeria and China. Because there are also about 20 000 Chinese immigrants who live in Nigeria. They claim also that the Nigerians are not the only people who live somewhere illegal. For this reason they want to do an audit, to check how many Chinese immigrants live in Nigeria.

On the one hand it’s strange to do an audit to the number of illegal people in the country. But on the other hand I’m sure that they strive for a better treatment of the people. It’s a good case if this will be reached. But I think that there will be always maltreatment no matter what they do.

Read the article here.

Thirst for oil poses threat to US national security, says military adviser

As everyone knows, we have to do something about the environment. The US marines corps also worried about it, because their fuel costs are very high. And the US is very dependent on other countries. This is why they're at risk. So they decided to do an energy audit.

Studies show that by 2011, the world should consist of 7 billion people. This figure has never been this high. When there are more people, it should result in a higher use of fuel. And this is what the world wants to stop. Because we all know what will happen, when we wouldn't help the environment (a rise of sea levels, extreme temperatures,...).

As US marines corps' troops are in Afghanistan and Iraq, they still need a lot of fuel. But the military research labs are at the moment looking for new energy-saving devices.

Obama announced yesterday, there will be an award of more or less $3.5bn (£2.1bn), which they will use to modernize America's electrical grid. The White House also sponsors a public forum, concerning energy.

Let me summarize the key points. So why does America want to reduce their oil use?
At first, oil has a high price. Which means it would be better to reduce this cost. That's why they're looking for better devices, which won't drink this much oil. Secondly, due to their oil use, the US is very dependent on other countries. Especially, those where the marines corps are fighting.. And Thirdly, we should think about the future. If we won't reduce the oil use, there will be a lot of bad consequences.

So I think it's good they did this kind of audit. You can see clearly, they worry about the future. It's a good sign they're looking for new and better device, to reduce those costs. Actually, I think it's good oil has a high price. Thanks to this, people won't use it as much as they want. It's a sort of brake.

Read the article here

San Jose fails in animal licensing according audit

San Jose’s animal services agency has been audited by the city council. The audit report concludes only 17,7% of the 190.000 dogs and 5,7% of the 205.000 cats in this city are licensed. This is only 11,5 percent of the likely 400.000 dogs and cats in San Jose! Though, the number of licensed animals has been improved since 2003 according to the audit. Licensing cats and dogs is very important because that’s the only way to guarantee the owners that their animal has been vaccinated against the rabies virus. This virus is deadly to people and other mammals, so this means licensing is a matter of public health. The audit report recommends San Jose to improve its licensing system or to board out licensing.

I think it’s very good that there has been an audit of this agency because it revealed the little amount of animal licensing in San Jose. First of all, it’s important to license the animals because their owners can be sure they are vaccinated. And second of all because the public health of this city could be in danger. If the people of San Jose react now, they can perhaps avoid a real catastrophe, not only for humanity but also for the animals!

http://www.mercurynews.com/bay-area-news/ci_13655185?source=rss

Colruyt

This week I found inspiration for my blog in my speaking task for English class. The assignment: chose a company and make a presentation with a short history overview and try to persuade your spectators to invest in the company.

I searched on the Euronext 100, and the company who caught my attention was “Colruyt”. I don’t have the intention to write down everything I’ll use in my presentation. (If you’re interested in more information about Colruyt you can always attend my English class on Friday :) ) But because I don’t have enough time to explain everything in my presentation I want to focus more on the social commitment of Colruyt. But I only will pick 1 because other ways my blog will become too long.

I have choisen the commitment to deliver good quality goods to the customers. Colruyt has a closed control system for the meat and fish products. This control system is certificated by Quality Control (an external control institute).

Also for the toys there is a special examination systems. The toys are not allowed to be sold in the stores if they aren’t accepted.

I like shops who not only make a mission of delivering goods who have a good quality, but who also want to make the world a better place. And that’s what Colruyt does: they want to improve the world. And they aren’t afraid to undertake action and if necessary to take a risk.
Second of all colruyt wants to be sure of the quality so I found it a good idea that they have installed their own control system to check the quality of the products.

Birmingham council demands forensic audit

I looked on the Internet and I found another article about auditing. It’s very strange but I’ve never heard about the city Birmingham and the article I’ve found goes about this city! So I looked for more information on Wikipedia. After I’ve done that, I knew that Birmingham is the biggest city of Alabama in the United States. And it is also the county seat of Jefferson County.

Now I’ll tell you more about the article. The Birmingham city council wanted to carry out an audit to know how much money the city had in the bank. The mayor of Birmingham, Larry Langford, claimed that there was a surplus of 13 million dollar, but the budget performance report showed a deficit. An analyst hired by the council said that the deficit could be increase to 27 million dollar but the mayor’s chief of staff denied it. He said that they had a surplus of 13 million dollar and that the city still had incomes.

Councilor Valerie Abbott discussed that they can’t make a budget without knowing how much money they’ve got. After a big discussion with the councilors, the majority voted to request a forensic audit and to continue operations which belong to the budget of 2009.

A recently appeared report shows that Birmingham is almost bankrupt. The county has fallen hopelessly behind on payments and could evolve in the largest municipal bankruptcy in Americans history. There are complaints against the mayor for conspiracy, bribery, fraud, money laundering, and filing false tax returns. The process of Langford will be kept this month (October 2009).

It is very interesting to know what happens in a city you’ve never heard about. Now I know something more about something financial in Birmingham. And I have also smoothed my geography by looking on Wikipedia.

You can find the article here.

Perfetti Van Melle receives SA8000 certification

I think everybody knows the brands Mentos, Fruitella, Look-O-Look, Frisk and Chupa Chups. But I don’t think everybody knows the producer of all these sweets... Well, it’s the world’s third largest manufacturer of confectionery; Perfetti Van Melle.

Perfetti Van Melle has decided to obtain the SA8000 certification to be an example for its suppliers by showing that they are social responsible. Therefore, Lloyd’s Register Quality Assurance has audited the company with the eye on this social standard.

Some criteria of the SA8000 standard are:
· no child labour or forced labour
· no discrimination
· a healthy and safe workplace

The fact that Perfetti Van Melle deserves the, one of the most widely recognised, standard is also good news for the food manufacturing supply chain. This industry is namely under public pressure to ensure that their employees are fairly treated and work in proper conditions.

I think Perfetti Van Melle has made a good decision by being an example for its suppliers because that’s the way to motivate them to do the same. Namely, most of its suppliers are from countries where workers rights aren’t really a priority. And it’s of course also good for the whole food industry since Perfetti Van Melle has proved that unfairly treating and working in bad conditions is not a usually thing in every food manufacturing company.

http://www.lr.org/Industries/LRQA/News/perfetti-van-melle-sa-8000-csr.htm

Handover of forces homes attacked

When I was reading some of the latest news articles concerning auditing, I found this shocking text. The National Audit Office made a report about people that move into a new house. Fasten your seatbelts, because these are the results!

Tell me, if you’re going to move into a new house, the first thing you want, is to see it? Well, mostly, people don’t see where they’re going to live. And the worse thing about it, is that it’s very dirty when they arrive. For example, a third of the families they audited, said it hadn’t been cleaned before they moved in.

The Commons spending watchdogs wants the Ministry of Defense to do something about this. The armed forces families should get more details about their accommodation. And if it’s so dirty, when they want to move it, they should be able to deduct cleaning charges from the previous owners.

The public accounts committee examined the report of the National Audit Office. And they decided to introduce this possibility to deduct these cleaning costs. In addition, they force previous occupants to give details (including photographs and floor prints) about the accommodation, before they move in.

The committee’s chairman thinks soldier families should be treated like clients. So if they’re a big family, they should get a big house. But MoD gives these big houses to the officers.

The Shadow defense secretary says that service personnel shouldn’t have to worry about whether their family has It good at home.

I think it’s about time they do something about this. It’s a sort of discrimination, if they give the best houses to the officers, and the worse to the lowest rank of soldiers. These soldiers also have rights and needs. And I think the MoD should hire some people to check these houses. Because I think everybody deserves a good, clean and lovely house. It’s good they can deduct the cleaning costs.

So government, do something about it!

Read the article

Africa: devoured by greed?

Nigeria is situated in the West of Africa, and holds many natural resources which could flourish in the mining industry and agriculture.
Still there is great poverty in that country. How can this be?
Sola Odunfa an African journalist has given us a reason: “Corruption”.

The Central Bank of Nigeria has recently audited 10 banks and only 5 of them were in order. Now there will be audits of other 14 banks. The question is: “How much of these 14 banks will be approved?” It will mean a disaster for the financial industry and the economy if half of these banks don’t appear to be in order and if they need the support of the Government. However the laws are strictly enough. By law, everything must be checked if someone wants a loan. So in fact there could be no bank crisis. But as Sola Odunfa said, corruption is an enormous problem.

If the people want a loan they have to pay bribes. How more the bankers receive money from the bribes, how greedier they become and how more they close their eyes to regulations. This all at the cost of the poor people.

The young managers of the bank drive in the most beautiful cars and live in the best neighborhoods. They are like superstars. They donate shameless openly money to ' charities' like churches and they receive special privileges. In the last audit, three managers have already been arrested but they plead not guilty. There will probably be even more arrested after the other 14 banks are audited. But the question still remains if that could tame the greed devouring the Nigerian elite.

Nigeria is a country with many opportunities, it could be a country that flourish. But it doesn’t happen and that’s a shame. The poor governance and corruption provides unrest amongst the population which constitutes a danger to the stability of the country.
It is regrettable to see that again and again throughout the world the rich people become richer and the poor poorer.

Read the article.

How To Bluff Your Way Trough An IRS* Audit.

When I was searching for a funny video concerning auditing, I found this one on Youtube. It tells you in 7 steps, how you can "bluff" your way through an IRS audit.
These steps are only necessary when you did something wrong, for instance saying you've earned more than you really did. The seven steps are very much alike, they only want the auditor to be distracted.

At first you can gather as much paperwork as possible. This doesn't even require a link with the audit. Just make sure the auditor gets a bit depressed by seeing how much work he has to do. If possible, you could even make the paper works dirty, so he/she wouldn't like to touch it.
Or dress to impress. Auditors are mostly boring people, who spend their days working and working. So why don't we grab our brightest clothes?

No comprendo! You can make yourself unintelligible by speaking in another language, or speaking so fast, he/she doesn't understand. Maybe ask him some questions too.

When the previous steps didn’t have any result, you should try to explain your misbehavior. Tell him/her for example, you’re protesting the tax laws. This argument can put a smile on his/her face. I mean, these laws are so difficult to understand!
If he/she still looks angry, try to make deal with him/her.

It can take 28 months to know the result of an IRS audit. During this period, you have the possibility to start working out. Because it will be useful when you go to prison.

After seeing this video, I laughed. I guess it has a slight chance of working. In addition to the chance, I think they've already conquered a lot of misbehaviors. They know the tricks to avoid punishes. And to have to wait 28 months for the result, is very long. I guess your guiltiness is getting bigger and bigger. I would never try this. It's too dangerous.
But still, it's funny to watch.
Don't try this at home!

*IRS = Internal Revenue Service

Watch the video

Lernout & Hauspie

The most well known case about how auditing can go wrong is the case of “Lernout & Hauspie". For my blog this week I found a video about this case. For those who do not know what happened to Lernout & Hauspie, I’ll explain what happened.

Lernout & Hauspie was a company founded by Jo Lernout and Paul Hauspie in 1987. It was a company specialised in speech recognition technology. After some rumours about financial impropriety, some journalist from the Wall Street Journal started an investigation. They revealed a big financial scandal involving improper accounting methods and fictive transactions to make dividends raise. But the most shocking fact in the scandal was that KPMG was involved. The companies accountant wasn’t only neglectful but he had an active role in the improper accounting. After the revelation of the inaccuracies the dividends collapsed what resulted in 2007 in bankruptcy.

According to me it’s unacceptable a company starts fiddling with the accounts because that’s a sign there is something fundamental wrong with the company. A healthy company produces and sales enough to make a lot of profit, what makes it unnecessary to fiddle. Second of all I wonder how it’s possible that an accountant can allow a company to fiddle with the numbers. Because it’s his duty to control the budgets, how can he be proud of what he has achieved when he doesn’t act properly?

link to the youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkJ9KwdIHK4

Child labour audit in India

Despite of the (3 year existing!) prohibition of child labour, a report of UNICEF says there are still more than 12 million children in India who have to work in dangerous conditions. That’s why the Campaign Against Child Trafficking and Labour (CACT) started a National Social Audit to check the maintenance of the law. The CACT already began auditing in Delhi and in 11 other states. They are first going to examine the government reports and then audit the children who are working in restaurants alongside the highways in the country. The audit would also reveal the irregularities concerning the age under which a person is considered a child.

I’ve chosen this source because I wanted to confirm that auditing doesn’t always have to be linked with a company; in this article it’s about auditing a country. Another reason why I’ve chosen this source is because I think it’s an important issue that I would like to bring up. It’s ridiculous that this sort of problem isn’t banished yet! This proves again that auditing is very important, like in this example, it can save lives! I hope this audit will have an effect so that the child labour in India will reduce a lot.

Link to the article: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/3-years-on-child-labour-ban-just-on-paper/articleshow/5107679.cms

Halal-label for the pig-industry

I was still looking for an interesting subject for my own blog when Jana asked me what I thought about the title of her new blog. So I opened our site and took a look at it. I start reading her blog and I remembered that I have read a article whit a similar subject in the “Metro”. (for those who’re not taking the train regularly: “Metro” is a free paper you can found every day in the stations.)
I didn’t know exactly what was in the article so I wanted to search it on the web. But unfortunately I couldn’t found it anymore. The article was talking about the pig-industry in Belgium. Belgium has an increasing number of export from pigs to Islamite countries. To increase the export even more the Belgium pig-industry wants to introduce a Halal-label. When I searched for the article (I couldn’t found) I came across the EuroHalal site. There I could read more about Halal-food and Halal-labels.

First of all I think it’s a good idea to introduce a Halal-label. Because of the declining numbers of the export to non-Islamite countries it’s necessary to exploit new markets so the Belgium pig-industry can keep exporting. An introduction of Halal-label will have the effect more Islamite people will be interested in our pig meat. This will result in a better export, what will be good for our economic.

Vegetables and fruits market: watch out! Here is Flandria!

I can imagine most of the people who read the title of this blog post are thinking: what have Flandria vegetables and fruits got to do with auditing?!? Well, actually it’s quite simple: before these vegetables and fruits deserve this label, the cultivator of these products gets regularly audited and is being checked on the production conditions. These conditions are of course very strict so the consumer can be assured that these products have a very good quality. The products have to have a perfect taste, an impeccable appearance and of course they have to be safe to eat. The cultivator also has to pay attention to the environment and hygiene during the cultivation process. A Flandria-product is always very fresh: it’s reaped just one day before you can buy it.

I think it’s very good that the vegetables and fruits have to undergo a strict audit before they can receive the Flandria-label, otherwise the label wouldn’t have any purpose. It’s also very good that they make TV-spots for the label because people will recognize it when they go shopping and maybe buy the product. Hopefully a lot of people will buy the Flandria products because the cultivators have to be rewarded for their hard effort!

Here you can watch the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRnkRHv6XlY&feature=related (if you look under “related videos” on the right side of the page, you can watch other videos of the Flandria-label)

SUNY steps in to oversee audit of BU athletic program

Last Friday, SUNY and its trustees, announced an independent audit of BU's athletic program. First, Nancy Zimpher (SUNY's chancellor) and Lois DeFleur (BU's president) will get together to discuss the audit.

The last two weeks, six basketball team members were dismissed. One of those players was Emanuel "Tiki" Mayben, who was charged for cocaine-sale. The other five players, were kicked off the team, due to "unspecified rules violations". These six team members have already been released.

During this period, Joe Thirer got his job back as athletics director. And Sally Dear thinks the university didn't reassign her, due to her criticisms of the athletics program, in public. But she will be the adjunct in human development, during the audit.

There will be an external consultant to audit the program. Thanks to this consultant, it will assure that they follow America East and NCAA policies and procedures. This process will require transparency and accountability. The audit should finally bring the confidence in the athletics program back.

In addition to this audit, there's another lawsuit against BU. At first, two athletics officials forced Elizabeth Williams to use her sexuality, so they could get big donors. After that, she couldn't keep it a secret, and told the BU officials. Due to this action, the two athletics officials took punitive measures against her.

So there's a lot going on at BU. I hope the audit will give us more answers about these events. It's necessary that people get their trust back.

* SUNY : State University of New York
* BU : Binghamton University, and it's one of the four university centers in SUNY

Read this article

GAO Finds Audit Quality Problems at Pentagon

The GOA (Government Accountability Office)[1] discovered large problems in the auditing of the Pentagon. The problems about audits of the Pentagon goes about contracts worth hundred billion dollars. The GAO checked 69 audits executed by DCAA (Defense Contract Audit Agency)[2] and only 4 satisfy to the government auditing standards.

A report of the GAO gave proof that the relation between the management and the contractors was too good. Thus a senior accountant was threatened by the management and he was obligatory to remove the negative comments which concerned a large federal contractor. People who took their work seriously were often teased by their supervision holders. The DCAA says that they take the report seriously.

This report can lead to the largest scandal ever concerning auditing. The DCAA has already taken steps to solve the problems but this won’t go easy. There should be more done than they do now for solving the problem, and this will last years.

This is again an example that there must be more controls of matters where a lot of money is involved because there are so many things that ordinary people don’t know. It’s good to have such an organization like the GOA which try to do good things and reveal things like fraud.

[1] The GAO is the audit of the US Congress. It was established as the General Accounting Office and execute especially financial audits but it's also known for performance audits.

[2] The DCAA is the office which cares for the auditing of the defense including the Pentagon.

You can find the article here.

the first time

It’s impossible to write about something, if you don’t know what “that something “ means. So I thought it would be interesting to start with an answer on the question: “What is auditing”. Because I couldn’t give a clear answer on the question I opened the Google site and searched for “auditing”. A whole list of hits appeared and I took a look at some of them. As always Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, was standing first in line.

The first sentence on the site:
“The general definition of an audit is an evaluation of a person, organization, system, process, enterprise, project or product.”

That seemed a clear answer to my question. Now I knew what auditing ment I could look for some further information. Apparently audits are used to guarantee the reliability of information and as an intern-control system. Traditionally the financial audits were used the most, but nowadays there are much more audits (ex. Safety audits, energy audits, quality audits,…). A combination of all of these audits can give a good look upon the achievements of the organization. When these audits are performed by an independent person (an auditor) they are published in an audit report.

The most well known auditor companies are called the big four. PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, Ernst & Young and KPMG have over time created an oligopoly over the auditing industry.

Now I know what “different aspects of auditing” means it won’t be hard to find a new topic for next week.

If you still want to know more about this topic you can read more on the site.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audit

The Fed under fire

In America it’s not going well with the economy.
By the credit crunch the population is afraid and they want to know what’s happened with their money. Now they want to audit the Fed. The Fed (Federal Reserve System) is the Federal Central Bank and was established in 1913. After a credit crunch, president Wilson wanted that the Fed would be given more control over the capital. Since then their power has grown and the Fed has more control. It’s the most powerful and most secret organisation, now president Obama want to give even more power to them. Before that happens the Congress want to do an audit for the first time in history because the Fed has lost a lot of money and they want to know what’s happened with the money and to which banks they are given the money. But the Fed is refusing to allow an audit. They say that they don’t admit an audit because it’s bad for America, the stability of the financial system and the dollar. The people and some members of the Parliament find it very strange because if they have nothing to hide they would permit the audit.
The Fed has a loss of so much money and they can’t show the Congress where the money is. That’s why it’s very important to do an audit and this is also my opinion. Ordinary people need to know what’s happened with their money. There should be regular audits of large financial institutes!

Watch the video!