Is There Any Point in Statutory Audits?

This article investigates the causes of major undetected financial frauds in Bangladesh — notably the recent Tk 450 crore “cooked books” case — through the combined lenses of audit effectiveness, corporate governance, and legal accountability. It argues that such failures are not mere lapses in audit practice but the result of structural fragility in the ecosystem of accounting standards, accrual-based financial reporting, governance oversight, and statutory law.