MUSCAT // An Indian accountant working for a construction firm in Muscat defrauded his employers of Dh3.7 million by changing the company’s account number to his own.
The 56-year old Indian national, Hari Kumar, has worked as an accountant at Gulf Construction and Building Material Company since 2011.
He was promoted to head of the section in 2015.
The missing money came to light after Mr Kumar suddenly left Oman.
“The case is in the court now but he has sent the invoice of the last three payments, a total of 385,000 rials (Dh3.7m) to our client, which I am not at liberty to name, for the instalments of the construction of his commercial building in Muscat. The money was paid into his account,” said Sameer Al Battashi, joint managing director of the company where Mr Kumar was employed.
“We did not know about it until last week when he left the country after asking for one-week emergency leave.”
The client had signed a contract with Gulf Construction for the company to build a commercial property.
But when Mr Kumar sent out invoices to the client, he inserted his own bank account number instead of the company’s. Gulf Construction was alerted when the client informed them that he had not received any receipts for the money he had paid.
The company is a joint venture owned by an Omani businessman and a UAE investor. The Omani partner said the accountant who defrauded the company was a loyal and hardworking employee.
Gulf Construction has filed the case at the labour court in Muscat. An official there said more than half of crimes, such as embezzlement and faking identity information, are committed by middle managers. Though the number of fraud cases which go to court is falling in Oman, fraud remains a problem for the ministry of manpower which takes it seriously.
There were 734 financial fraud cases committed by employees in Oman in 2016, about 11 per cent lower than a year earlier.
A ministry spokesman said some companies tried to save costs by having their books audited by external auditors only once a year instead of every quarter, but this meant discrepancies were not noticed immediately.
“That is the good news, that fraud cases are going down, but the bad news is that company owners are still negligent when it comes to tightening up control of their finances despite our regular warnings.”
foreign.desk@thenational.ae
How will Gen Alpha invest?
Mark Chahwan, co-founder and chief executive of robo-advisory firm Sarwa, forecasts that Generation Alpha (born between 2010 and 2024) will start investing in their teenage years and therefore benefit from compound interest.
“Technology and education should be the main drivers to make this happen, whether it’s investing in a few clicks or their schools/parents stepping up their personal finance education skills,” he adds.
Mr Chahwan says younger generations have a higher capacity to take on risk, but for some their appetite can be more cautious because they are investing for the first time. “Schools still do not teach personal finance and stock market investing, so a lot of the learning journey can feel daunting and intimidating,” he says.
He advises millennials to not always start with an aggressive portfolio even if they can afford to take risks. “We always advise to work your way up to your risk capacity, that way you experience volatility and get used to it. Given the higher risk capacity for the younger generations, stocks are a favourite,” says Mr Chahwan.
Highlighting the role technology has played in encouraging millennials and Gen Z to invest, he says: “They were often excluded, but with lower account minimums ... a customer with $1,000 [Dh3,672] in their account has their money working for them just as hard as the portfolio of a high get-worth individual.”
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Haemoglobin disorders explained
Thalassaemia is part of a family of genetic conditions affecting the blood known as haemoglobin disorders.
Haemoglobin is a substance in the red blood cells that carries oxygen and a lack of it triggers anemia, leaving patients very weak, short of breath and pale.
The most severe type of the condition is typically inherited when both parents are carriers. Those patients often require regular blood transfusions - about 450 of the UAE's 2,000 thalassaemia patients - though frequent transfusions can lead to too much iron in the body and heart and liver problems.
The condition mainly affects people of Mediterranean, South Asian, South-East Asian and Middle Eastern origin. Saudi Arabia recorded 45,892 cases of carriers between 2004 and 2014.
A World Health Organisation study estimated that globally there are at least 950,000 'new carrier couples' every year and annually there are 1.33 million at-risk pregnancies.