BCCI chief: $566 million in fraud per year
Wednesday May 18 2011 | 06:15 AM

It is estimated that the cost of fraud in Barbados is approximately BDS$566 million annually. 

This is the word of President of the Barbados Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI), Andy Armstrong. He was speaking yesterday at a workshop titled: ‘Fraud Schemes – How they are committed, how they can be found’ at the Hilton Barbados, put on by the BCCI and Areef Ali & Associates Business Solutions. 

Based on calculations made by Armstrong himself, he said that fraud is a much more significant problem than the general public realises. Using facts from a report released by the United Kingdom (UK) National Fraud Authority, Armstrong said he was able to apply it to the Barbadian population and come up with figures that apply to this country. 

“I tried to get an idea of how big of a problem it is and I checked in the UK, and the National Fraud Authority in the UK released a report on the 12th of February this year, and they estimate fraud in the UK to cost about £38 billion per year. 

I adjusted for population and I converted to Barbados dollars and I came up with a figure of BDS$566 million a year – or roughly, $2 000 per person. If you look at just the working population, it is about $4 000 per person per year that fraud costs Barbados,” Armstrong explained. 

The BCCI President went on to say that fraud is a widespread and significant problem, affecting not only the private and public sectors, but charities and individuals as well. He added that in Barbados, fraud seems to be most prevalent in cases where the public and private sectors intersect. 

“I would imagine that the public sector is also very interested in getting to the bottom of fraud within the public sector, and I know when we had that launch, William Layne said that you tend to get the most corruption and fraud where the public sector and the private sector intersect. So where the private sector is looking for various permissions or whatever, where they are intersecting with the public sector, that is where most of the fraud tends to happen,” Armstrong stated.