Rethinking the Role of Accountants: Internal Control Watchdogs, Not Just Financial Auditors
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Considering recent corporate governance failures, including those detailed in the founding affidavit of Abraham Petrus Collard (June 2025), the traditional role of accountants is undergoing a necessary transformation. No longer can financial professionals afford to function solely as "number checkers" executing spot audits at year-end. The risks are simply too high, and the costs are too severe.
In June 2025, Abraham Petrus Collard, a former senior manager, filed a Labour Court affidavit exposing severe internal control failures at his Namibian employer. He alleged unauthorised transactions, ignored conflict-of-interest red flags, and a breakdown in financial oversight, not only challenging his dismissal but revealing systemic governance lapses that put millions at risk.
Case in Point: The Cost of Lax Internal Controls
The affidavit exposes systemic breakdowns in fiduciary responsibility, oversight, and financial controls within a Namibian company. It outlines how millions were at risk due to:
Unauthorised transactions
Missing governance approvals, and
Conflicts of interest are overlooked by operational and accounting staff.
These are not just financial missteps, they are control failures. And they are entirely preventable. Just ask the Namibian investment group where a trusted financial manager siphoned off N$41 million over 9 years undetected. This wasn’t just poor oversight, it was a glaring absence of internal control checks. Regular accountant involvement could have flagged inconsistencies in vendor payments years earlier.
Accountants Must Be More Than Compliance Checkers
The assumption that a financial audit, often done annually or quarterly, can detect internal fraud or unethical conduct is not only flawed but dangerously outdated. Spot-checking financials once misconduct has occurred is too little, too late. By then, the money is gone, the reputation damaged, and the litigation wheels are already turning.
The Required Paradigm Shift
Accountants must evolve into internal control sentinels, embedding themselves across departments, functions, and processes, not just the finance team.
Fraud Detection and Prevention
Continuous involvement enables accountants to identify early signs of:Inflated procurement invoices
Unexplained payments or asset transfers
Vendor manipulation or shell companies.
Cost Savings
Proactive accountants can stop loss leaks before they become financial hemorrhages. In some cases, this vigilance could literally save companies millions, as seen in matters such as the Collard affidavit.Enhanced Decision Support
With real-time oversight, accountants become trusted advisors, helping management balance risk with opportunity more effectively.Improved Ethics and Governance
Their presence fosters a culture of transparency, discouraging misconduct simply by increasing the perceived likelihood of detection.
The Watchdog Model in Action
Instead of reactive auditing, companies should empower accountants to:
Conduct internal control walkthroughs
Monitor transactional workflows regularly
Flag conflict-of-interest scenarios early
Participate in governance meetings, not just year-end closings.
This transition requires training, trust, and executive support, but it is absolutely necessary.
The Cost of Inaction
When accountants are sidelined or limited to financial audits only, they miss critical red flags, often due to information silos. In the affidavit case, internal red flags were either not escalated, not understood, or not acted upon until it was too late.
The cost? Not just monetary, but legal, reputational, and cultural damage that takes years to repair.
Conclusion
It is time we elevated the role of accountants from reactive auditors to strategic internal control partners. Their skillset, objectivity, and ethics uniquely position them to protect organisations, not just from bad numbers, but from bad decisions.
When accountants step up as watchdogs of governance and control, they become more than bean counters.
They become risk shields. Ethical anchors. Value savers.
