Nepal’s journey to the 2011 World Cup ended

Nepal’s journey to the 2011 World Cup ended
The national cricket team ended its losing streak at the international tournaments by winning the final of ICC World Cup League Division 5 on Saturday. Nepal, who have already qualified for Division 4, defeated the US by five wickets to the cheers of a huge home crowd. Nepal’s win is significant in many ways. First, it is national cricket teams’ first ever title victory and second, it has kept Nepal’s quest for the 2015 Cricket World Cup alive. “We had worked hard for this day,” said an elated Nepali skipper Paras Khadka. “Hopefully, this will put the tag of chokers behind us.” The last few years have been quite discouraging for the Nepali cricket. Nepal’s journey to the 2011 World Cup ended when it failed to qualify for Division 4 in 2008 and finished fifth in the last ACC Trophy. Last year, the junior national squad failed to quality for the U-19 World Cup for the first time since 1997. Hence, Saturday’s win has given much- needed energy to the senior squad and joy to cricket fans. However, the road ahead won’t be easy. It has to figure in the top two teams in the next two divisions to get entry into Division 2. If Nepal enters Division 2, then it will play a 12-nation world cup qualifier, from which top six nations will get to participate in the 2015 World cup. Coach Roy Dias said the senior team had crossed a hurdle after various attempts. “Yes, it is pure hard work, but we also need luck at times and it looks like the lady luck is back with us,” said Dias.

Feeding America Selects Nuance PDF Converter Professional as Desktop Standard

a leading provider of speech and imaging solutions, today announced Feeding America, the nation’s largest hunger-relief organization, has selected Nuance PDF Converter Professional 6 as its desktop PDF software. Feeding America will deploy Nuance PDF Converter Professional as part of its Athena technology project for national office staff and participating member food banks. The use of PDF within the organization enables more efficient electronic document workflows and collaboration – speeding Feeding America’s ability to service the needs of hungry Americans.

“Sadly, when the economy is bad, the number of people relying on our service grows — and we have been swamped in our efforts to provide food to feed a growing number of individuals and families,” said Kevin Lutz, vice president of technology, Feeding America. “Our business strategy is to move more food to more people while minimizing growth in expenses, and one way we will get there is through technology efficiency. Nuance PDF Converter Professional is advancing us towards our goal by reducing our costs to create, edit and share PDF files.”

Part of an organization-wide business initiative to upgrade office technology called Project Athena, the Nuance PDF Converter deployment will help Feeding America save on fax, printing and postal costs.

Deploying Microsoft Windows 7 is another component of Project Athena and PDF Converter has unique integration with Microsoft Office and SharePoint. For example, PDF Converter complements Microsoft’s save-as PDF capabilities in Office and provides Feeding America users with a host of capabilities that enhanced the user experience when using PDF with Microsoft Windows 7. Also, PDF Converter allows Feeding America to save documents to and retrieve document from its SharePoint repositories.

Feeding America has used PDF technology to reduce document printing by distributing PDF files via email rather than paper-based faxing. Also, the organization distributes Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint documents to food banks as PDF files, so they don’t need the source software for viewing. To collect information, Feeding America distributes electronic forms and Nuance PDF Converter changes static forms into fillable PDF forms that food banks can complete, save and email.

More information on Nuance PDF Converter Professional 6 software can be found at http://www.nuance.com/imaging/products/pdfconverter.asp. To download and try the software free for 30 days, click PDF Converter Professional 6 trial.

Principles, not rules: thanks to codes drafted under Mervyn King, South Africa has taken the lead in defining corporate governance in broadly inclusiv

I think principles are more effective than rules, simply because it's easier to get around a rule than to get around a principle. My second observation is this: It's true that fish rot from the head. Companies need to set a standard at the top, and if those at the top start acting wrongly or unethically, the whole company knows about it. If the boss is stealing, why shouldn't the employees steal?
At Enron, for example, there was confusion between dissent and disloyalty. If a person at a boardroom table doesn't agree with what the majority is thinking, provided it's properly motivated and it's not just being bloody-minded, that's good; that's dissent. But sometimes at a boardroom table, disagreement is seen as disloyalty. Companies need to create a culture of motivated dissent.
In some of my writings and talks, I also say that an important attribute of a director is intelligent naivete. Although that may sound like an oxymoron, all it means is board members can't have expert knowledge of what's happening in the business, especially if they are non-executives. So, they need to ask what I've called intelligently naive questions, and not be embarrassed to do so, because it also helps those who are better informed to think again.
King II seems to recognize the importance of internal auditors in qualitative governance.

To me, the role of the internal auditor is absolutely critical in a company. If I come onto the board as a non-executive director, I'm a victim of "asymmetrical knowledge." Asymmetrical knowledge arises simply because the executives have absolute knowledge of the business. I'm relying on the information fed to me by those executives. I must be robust in testing the quality of that information. I must ask my intelligently naive questions, and if necessary, I must ask that someone else come into the boardroom to answer my questions or provide more information. In that circumstance, I always feel more comfortable as a non-executive director on a board when I know that the information coming to that boardroom has gone through the sieve of internal auditing. Then, I have another comfort zone about the accuracy and quality of that information. When I have reports coming up to the boards, I ask, "Has internal auditing checked these facts? What does internal auditing say?" If auditing hasn't reviewed the information, I always say, "Let's postpone the meeting," or "Let's call the internal auditor and see if he or she has done an audit on this before."
When I'm a member of a board, I always like the internal auditor to have a functional reporting line to the chairman of the audit committee and the chairman of the board. The internal auditor may report to the chief executive officer, but there must be an open-door policy to the chairmen of the audit committee and board. The board has a huge responsibility in this regard.

Principles, not rules: thanks to codes drafted under Mervyn King, South Africa has taken the lead in defining corporate governance in broadly inclusiv

IN 1994, THE YEAR THAT SOUTH AFRICA ENDED WHITE-MINORITY RULE and elected Nelson Mandela president, South African businesses underwent a more subdued but highly significant transition of their own. That year, a committee headed by Mervyn King, a corporate lawyer and former High Court judge, issued the "King Report on Corporate Governance." King I, as it is now known, incorporated a code of corporate practices and conduct that looked beyond the corporation itself, taking into account its impact on the larger community.
A second King Committee report--known inevitably as King II--was issued in 2002, taking this inclusive approach considerably further. "There is a growing weight of expectation on organizations to operate as good corporate citizens," the report says. "This is because of the influence they exercise on the lives of so many individuals. Each organization is the sum of its stakeholders, such as its shareowners, customers, employees, suppliers, and the communities within which it operates. It depends on them--individually and collectively--for the goodwill required to sustain its operations."
King spoke recently with Internal Auditor about King I and II and about how the South African initiatives compare with efforts to improve corporate governance in the United States.
Mr. King, the first King report was issued in 1994, during the momentous change in South Africa's government from white-minority rule to black-majority rule. What prompted that report and your involvement in it?

By 1991, there was a realization in South Africa that our previously disadvantaged fellow citizens were going to be in a new democratic society and would be moving from limited involvement in the economy into the mainstream. They had no experience with that, and there was nothing written down to guide them. There was also no guide as to how a board should treat stakeholders other than shareholders. I had practiced as a corporate lawyer for many years in South Africa, and I had sat on many boards. The Institute of Directors [in South Africa] and the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, as it was then called [now the JSE Securities Exchange], got together and asked me to chair a committee that was assembled to look at these issues.
The main item we discussed was, considering the special circumstances in the country, how to approach corporate governance in the new South Africa. Rather than focusing just on the financial aspects of governance, like the United Kingdom's 1992 Cadbury Code, we went for an integrated approach that looked at stakeholders as a whole who were linked through the company, and at how the board should deal with those stakeholders. It was the first time anyone had taken an integrated approach in articulating governance guidelines.
We decided to do King II because the governance of corporations is a dynamic thing. It doesn't stand still, and there were huge global developments from the time we published King I to the time we did King II. Companies around the world had learned over the years to approach reporting on an integrated basis, addressing social, economic, and environmental matters.
For the most part, King II doesn't seem to directly address the issues that led to the creation of King I.
We recommended in King I that companies engage in what became known as affirmative action. We set down guidelines in King I in an appendix as to how that should be carried out. Between 1994 and the publication of King II, the South African government passed the Employment Equity Act, which actually addressed the issue in its statutes, so it was unnecessary to deal with that in King II.
How has the South African government responded to King I and II?
The short answer is that there's been a positive reaction. However, there's been one response to which I'm opposed. There's some suggestion that certain aspects of the recommendations in King II should be legislated--in other words, be compulsory for all companies. Business is a difficult matter, and those who run it can't have the prescience to envisage what is going to happen from day to day, so they need flexibility in the processes associated with. administering their companies. To have the rigidity of a statute doesn't make business sense.
And how have South African companies responded to King I and King II?
Like all orchards, the corporate governance orchard in South Africa has a few diseased trees, but it is very healthy overall. That is not just my impression; it is the perception, for example, of American institutions that invest in South Africa because they believe that our country is among the best--if not the best--when it comes to corporate governance of emerging economies.
The JSE has adopted the King principles in its revised listing requirements. Parastatals [large state-owned enterprises] and the larger private companies are adhering to the main principles. Market forces dictate this.
In the United States, there has been a lot of criticism of efforts to draw up even more detailed rules, especially from overseas where many people believe that a principle-based approach is more effective.

Pofessional guidance - U.S. General Accounting Office and The Institute of Internal Auditors

Our view: Auditors should consider the nature, scope, and objectives of each audit in relation to perceptions others may have about the auditor's independence, objectivity, and integrity. Professional judgment will demand consideration of potential impairments. In other words, auditors need to carefully consider the substance of their work against the Standards. Therefore, if you are a governmental auditor who needs to comply with the Yellow Book standards and you wish to do consulting in accordance with The IIA's Standards, you should first check your activities against the two Yellow Book overarching principles for independence and then against the other applicable GAO standards. You can be assured that there is no disagreement between The IIA and the GAO over the substance of work performed and the principles and safeguards that should be employed to maintain auditor independence and objectivity under The IIA's Standards and the Yellow Book.
State and local government auditors should feel comfortable that they can provide a wide array of added value services while complying with Government Auditing Standards and the International Standards for the Professional Practice of Internal Auditing. Don't simply assume that you cannot do what The IIA calls consulting. Instead, consult the standards and evaluate the substance of your work in relation to both The IIA and Yellow Book standards.
* See May 20 letter from The Honorable David M. Walker, comptroller general of the United States, to Urton Anderson, chairman, Internal Auditing Standards Board, which is available online at www.gao.gov (Yellow Book link).

Pofessional guidance - U.S. General Accounting Office and The Institute of Internal Auditors

The U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) and The Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) have recently begun working together to clarify any perceived discrepancy between the two organizations' positions on auditor independence. The results of this effort thus far are presented below in a statement written by Sam McCall, city auditor for the city of Tallahassee, Fla., in consultation with Jeanette Meixner Franzel, director, financial management and assurance for the GAO, and Basil Pflumm, vice president of The IIA's Global Practices Center. The statement is intended to summarize the outcome of discussions between the two groups, highlight the compatibility between IIA and GAO independence standards, and help government auditors better understand how to provide services in compliance with both organizations' guidance.
In his article, "A Caution Light for Government Auditors" (April 2003, Internal Auditor), author Michael Barrier encapsulates the view of some government auditors that the GAO Independence Standard casts doubt on the compatibility between consulting and auditor independence and has chilled the expansion of audit services by government internal auditors. This "chill" results from the assumption that the GAO's description of consulting, as a nonaudit service, is synonymous with The IIA's description of consulting in its International Standards for the Professional Practice of Internal Auditing (Standards), formerly called the "Red Book."
As a result of the perceived disconnect between the GAO's Government Auditing Standards, also known as the "Yellow Book," and The IIA's Red Book terminology and requirements, The Institute and the GAO have entered into dialogue to understand any differences about the substance of work performed and to provide appropriate guidance to IIA members as well as government and nongovernment auditors who use the Yellow Book to guide their activities.

Phantom vendors: using a fictitious payment scheme, one employee manages to fluff his nest with company funds

Carruthers mentioned that he had been to see Fitzsimmons and was in possession of his seven legitimate invoices, totalling $35,000. The detective also had a written statement from the trainer indicating that he had suffered a heart attack two years ago and had subsequently retired from his professional consulting practice. The statement went on to say that Fitzsimmons had informed Pigeon of his circumstances not only verbally but in writing, a copy of which he allowed the CAE to read.
The monies paid via the fraudulently produced invoices were eventually traced to Paul Pigeon's lavish lifestyle. Unknown to the Example Corp., Pigeon, whose annual salary was $85,000, had joined a private club where yearly membership totaled $25,000, gone on vacations to exotic locations, and purchased a $350,000 cottage in a very exclusive area.
Although the company recovered, many of the people involved did not. Pigeon was subsequently charged and convicted of fraud. His superior, the director of human resources, was unceremoniously discharged with cause. The second-in-command to the director was demoted for approving duplicate expense reports without adequate support. The accounting group responsible for monitoring the budgets was chastised for not leaping on the budget overruns.
LESSONS LEARNED
* Fictitious payments can be to fictitious companies or, as in this case, fictitious payments can be to real payees who have no knowledge of the transaction.
* A change, such as the consultant giving up his practice for health reasons, can create opportunities for crooks.
* A budget review process is not effective if managers and finance professionals don't follow up on budget variances. Here, neither the director of human resources nor the accounting department questioned the budget variance.
* Willful blindness and ignorance have been contributing factors in many major cases. The director of human resources and the accounting staff ignored the budget variance, but the accounting staff also failed to notice anything amiss when the doctor, who had previously presented professional-looking invoices, started presenting handwritten invoices on rubber-stamped stationery.
* Managers often don't understand the fraud implications of their processes and reports. This organization would have benefited from yearly training courses for their management team that would include addressing the fraud implications of processes and reports.