Individuals in the public sector are always tasked with the responsibility of ensuring that they account for all the money that is in their possession. However, various unscrupulous members of the public sector tend to carry out their activities in a manner that they are unable to fully account for the assets that have been entrusted to them. The sad part of this type of crime is that the individual acquired the assets via a lawful means and the amount that is duly sent to them, however, they end up using the amount for a purpose that it was not intended for but in most instances they use the amount for their own personal use. This is what is referred to as embezzling public funds. In the United States, embezzling of public funds is a crime that is prohibited under 18 U.S. Code § 641, Chapter 31 of the national laws. This essay will look at the various forms of embezzlement and the various ways of ensuring that this vice is done away with in our society.
Embezzlement of public funds comes in various forms. These include;
Holding back of cash payments:
This form of embezzlement comes about when an individual does not record a sale or a withdrawal that has been brought to the company or the ministry. The fact that he or she receives the payments and does not input these amounts into the system means that this will, in turn, reciprocate in the wrong amounts for the company or the ministry to have a shortage in funds that are in their availability and hence this may end up affecting the society as a whole since the amounts that will be used for the betterment of the society will not be as much as required.
Lapping
This is the form of embezzlement where the individual ends up getting the payments to his or her personal account rather than the payment being made to the company’s or ministry’s official account. These amounts paid to the individual’s personal account will in most instances do no reach the official accounts of the institution but rather used for the personal use of the individual.
Fake refunds
This form of embezzlement comes in various forms, for example, in instances that the company is obliged to pay a customer a refund due to one reason or the other, but the individual paying this amount redirects the amount to his personal account. It may come in the form of overpaid invoices with the overpayment goes to the individual personal account. This form of embezzlement leads to the release of assets by the company which it is not mandated to do so.
Kiting
This is a form of embezzlement where the individual steals from the company by drafting fake check and deposits it to his banker and then writes another checking account where he writes the payment to be paid to the banker before the payment time reaches.
Knowing these various forms of embezzlement the next question is the various steps that the organizations and the government have to take in order to be able to fight this menace in our society. These ways include;
Having in place receipts which are numbered sequentially in order to tackle the issue of cash embezzlements in the organization.
Ensuring that the members of the organization are always rotated in order to be able to curb the issue of embezzlement through lapping.
Embracing technology in the organization will have the ability to detect the overpayments and ensuring that the payments are made to the customer’s personal account rather than the employees account.
Ensuring that the members of the society only pay directly to the company’s or the ministry’s personal account rather than paying the amount directly at the cashier’s office.
Educating the public on the various ways of spotting embezzlement and ways of ensuring that they are able to report and the various steps they can take in order to be able to stop it in the society.
In conclusion, with these in mind, each and every individual in the society is tasked with the responsibility of ensuring that the assets are accounted for and further ensuring that the funds of the company are used as required.
References
Dugan and Lopatka. (2014). Common Forms of Embezzlement. Retrieved June 28, 2016, from Dugan and Lopatka: http://www.duganlopatka.com/articles/business-articles/general/571-common-forms-of-embezzlement
Kevin Reilly, T. S. (2015). The Five letter F Word:Fraud in the Hospitality Industry. PB Mares, 2-16.
Telefora. (2016). Types of Embezzlement. Retrieved June 28, 2016, from My telefora: https://www.myteleflora.com/designeducation/Types-of-Embezzlement.aspx
