Small risks, big consequences: Why details matter

UGX 46 million vanished in less than an hour.

Not through a sophisticated hack. Not through some dark web syndicate. But because one junior accountant at a mid-sized SACCO forgot to press Ctrl+Alt+Del before stepping out for tea. That’s it. One forgotten click.

While managers were busy preparing for their weekly meeting and members queued outside to deposit their hard-earned savings, Suspect 1—a teller with sharp instincts for weakness- seized the moment. He slid into her still-active workstation, typed nothing, and yet unlocked everything. Within minutes, he rerouted UGX 76 million through three mobile money accounts. By the time the IT team noticed “irregular logins,” the cash had already been withdrawn in brown envelopes from Kikuubo agents.

This wasn’t a cyber genius at work. It was a crime of opportunity, powered by complacency.

Here’s the bitter truth: fraud in Uganda rarely starts with billion-shilling heists or complex malware. It starts with tiny details everyone dismisses. A door left ajar. A system is left logged in. A control left unenforced. And because leaders gamble that “nothing big will happen,” something massive always does.

This SACCO didn’t lose because it lacked technology. It lost because it lacked discipline.

The myth of “small” risks

Many leaders are obsessed with the big stuff: market share, regulatory approvals, new loans, donor inflows. Yet it is the “small” things that cripple organizations.

  • A missed reconciliation of UGX 200,000 in petty cash.
  • A supplier contract is missing one clause on delivery timelines.
  • An unpatched firewall is ignored because “IT is busy.”
  • A guard sleeping outside the warehouse, “just one night.”

Each feels negligible in isolation. But in practice, small risks are never small. They are the loose threads that unravel the entire fabric.

The details that destroyed giants

  1. The ghost fuel deliveries – A transport company ignored “minor” discrepancies in trip sheets. Over time, those “few missing litres” added up to UGX 1.2 billion siphoned off by colluding drivers and pump attendants. The board only woke up when clients began to terminate contracts.
  2. The weak password tragedy – A private university IT officer reused the same password across systems. Hackers cracked it within minutes. What began as a “small vulnerability” led to the leak of student data, lawsuits, and millions in damages.
  3. The fake signature scandal – A government project officer approved “small” field expenses without verifying signatures. For two years, fictitious names collected allowances. By the time Summit Consulting was hired, UGX 3.7 billion had evaporated.

The pattern is clear: small risks ignored turn into scandals that cripple.

Why leaders dismiss details

The psychology is simple: details feel boring, beneath senior executives. Boards like grand narratives, not red flags about missing invoices. CEOs prefer PowerPoint on expansion strategies, not notes on untrained security guards. But risk thrives in the margins, not in the headlines.

Remember: The Titanic wasn’t sunk by a fleet of icebergs. It hit one small detail, an iceberg tip nobody thought mattered.

Take Suspect 2, a procurement officer in a local hospital. She began by “borrowing” UGX 100,000 from supplier refunds. Nobody noticed. Encouraged, she increased to UGX 500,000, then UGX 2 million. By year three, she had rerouted over UGX 600 million. When caught, her defence was chilling: “If they ignored the small things, why wouldn’t I keep going?”

Fraud rarely begins with billions. It begins with overlooked details.

The red flags good investigators look for

When we investigate fraud, we don’t start with the “big scandal.” We start with the details:

  • Expense claims are repeatedly just below approval thresholds.
  • Staff who never take leave (afraid their fraud will be discovered).
  • Delayed reconciliations were excused as “system issues.”
  • IT logs showing after-hours access that nobody questions.
  • Petty cash never balances to the last shilling.

Each is a whisper of a coming storm. Ignore them, and you invite catastrophe.

Why do details matter?

  1. Culture – A culture that ignores details creates silent permission for fraud. If bosses laugh off small control breaches, staff take it as a green light.
  2. Compounding effect – UGX 100,000 stolen weekly becomes UGX 5.2 million annually. Over five years, it’s UGX 26 million. By then, the fraudster has graduated to bigger schemes.
  3. Regulatory cost – Donors and regulators don’t care whether theft began “small.” They penalize based on total loss. And in Uganda, reputational damage is instant and unforgiving.

Lessons for leaders

  1. Interrogate the details – Ask about small variances, small delays, small exceptions. That’s where truth hides.
  2. Reward vigilance, not speed – A staff member who takes extra minutes to cross-check signatures is more valuable than one who rushes.
  3. Automate the boring stuff – Use fraud analytics and dashboards. Machines don’t get bored by details; humans do.
  4. Hold managers accountable for the “small stuff” – Don’t let senior leaders hide behind strategy slides. Make them answer for reconciliations, leave rosters, and password policies.

At Summit, we tell clients: “Ignore the decimal point, lose the whole figure.” Every investigation we’ve cracked, whether UGX 80 million or UGX 8 billion, started with small anomalies someone dismissed. Our forensic accountants don’t chase headlines. They chase details. That’s how we catch the ghosts.

The devil lives in the details

Small risks are never small. They are termites chewing silently at the foundation. They rarely shout, but they always multiply. And by the time leadership notices, the cost is catastrophic.

The riskiest leaders in Uganda today are not the ones who gamble boldly. They are the ones who ignore details, shrugging off small risks as “minor.”

The next fraud in your organization won’t start with UGX 1 billion. It will start with UGX 100,000; nobody cares about it. The question is, who is watching the details?

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