Professional Networking Events

Presentation topic

Early in 2017 a former senior staff member of the Ministry of Transport was convicted and sentenced for undertaking fraudulent activity and defrauding the Ministry of over $700,000.  The arrest and conviction followed irregularities being identified by the Ministry, which were subsequently investigated.  Kelly Rushton, was the external auditor of the Ministry during this time and although not involved in the external investigation (which was performed by forensic auditors), was involved in observing the irregularities through the external audit procedures, what was identified by the Ministry and the process undertaken by the Ministry during and subsequent to the identification of the fraud.

There were a number of learnings noted by the external audit team, some with the benefit of hindsight, which are considered useful to share with other auditors – both internal and external. 

During the presentation, Kelly will be covering briefly an overview of how the fraud was perpetrated, the external auditors review and associated audit work, the key findings of the Ministry’s review of associated controls, and the observations and lessons learnt by the external audit team.

Presented by:
Kelly is an Audit Director at Audit New Zealand, with 20 years’ experience in public sector external auditing. He is (or has been) responsible, as the Appointed Auditor on behalf of the Auditor-General, for a portfolio of audit clients across a range of public sector entities including government departments, Crown entities, district health boards, energy lines companies and cemetery trusts.  He is also the audit engagement director for the Government of Niue and associated public sector and commercial entities. Kelly is also the chairperson of Audit New Zealand’s internal knowledge network for the health sector.

For the past 7 years, Kelly has been involved in the Ministry of Transport audit.