Determined to service the growing number of candidates aspiring to become chartered accountants in Nigeria, the Chartered Institute of Accountants in Nigeria (ICAN), has announced plans to begin the conduct of three professional examination diets from March 2020.
Speaking in Lagos on Wednesday at the AATWA 51th Induction Ceremony, Nnamdi Okwuadigbo, 55th president of ICAN, said the Institute’s professional examinations would now hold in March, July and November every year, as against the present two times in a year.
According to him, the development was against the backdrop that the Institute has progressed from manual marking of examination to on-screen marking, which has reduced the time of processing the examination scripts from about seven-eight weeks to only four weeks.
Okwuadigbo, who pointed out that the development would help to address the human capital gap in both the public and private sectors of the economy, said the rapid changes in the fundamentals of businesses require graduates to regularly update their skills and competencies as accounting technicians.
“The Governing Council of the Institute has constituted the AATWA Investigating Committee and its Disciplinary Tribunal to respectively investigate allegations against AATWA members and to consider the reports of the investigation in order to recommend appropriate sanctions to discipline any erring member,” he further disclosed.
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Stating ICAN’s resolve to provide the necessary technical support to would-be accounting entrepreneurs, he said the Institute has also established an Entrepreneurship Committee with the mandate to continually develop strategies for ensuring that chartered accountants in the Small and Medium Practices (SMPs) category are not just gainfully employed but that such businesses continue to thrive to provide employment opportunities.
The ICAN president said the standards of the ICAN’s examinations comply with that of the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC), the body that regulates the accounting profession globally, comprising of 175 accounting bodies and over 3 million Chartered Accountants across the world.
Earlier, Onome Joy Adewuyi, vice-president of ICAN said that a total of 734 candidates of Accountant Technicians were inducted, which brings the total number of AATWA members in ICAN to 34,616, inducted in 30 years of the certification.
According to her, this would not only provide a platform for the inductees, to exploit the numerous opportunities available for them, but would qualify them to join the Association of Accounting Technicians West Africa (AATWA), a regional accounting Association across West Africa.
Adewuyi said that AATWA membership improves employment opportunities, and grant the inductees eligibility to exemption from all subjects from foundation level and two subjects at the skill level.
She however called on the inductees to continue to develop and improve their skills and knowledge base, adding that membership of AATWA enhances employment opportunities especially in SMEs.
