What should members, government, and Nigerian professionals expect from your tenure as the 55th president of ICAN? n my Acceptance Speech on June 3, 2019 as the 55th President of ICAN, I enunciated our agenda for this administration. I wish to reiterate that this administration is consolidating on the legacies of the Institute’s Founding Fathers and achievements of past administrations.
As a tradition of our Institute, we have over the years provided top-notch capacity building programmes for chartered accountants in the country. We have also produced chartered accountants who are occupying strategic positions in the country’s economic value chain as chief finance officers, seasoned administrators and trusted technocrats.
Our administration has resolved that capacity building would continue to be a strategy in the scheme of events. Due to this commitment, we have tagged this Presidential Year as “Harnessing Internal Capacity” which translates to Empowering our Internal Skills, Building Stability and Sustainability”.
We would democratise lifelong learning for our members through the development of our e-learning platform to make it more efficient. Indeed, no member would be disadvantaged in access to our various training programmes due to location and distance.
The curriculum for our trainings would continue to be revised to ensure it keeps pace with global trends. The world is now a global community, hence we would produce chartered accountants that would compete favourably well with their counterparts in other parts of the world.
I need to mention that we have equally revised the syllabus for our professional examinations. The new syllabus, which takes effect in November 2019 diet of the examinations, has been structured to address the newly emerging areas in the noble accounting profession. With this, our students are being prepared to face the highly rewarding, albeit challenging, profession.
In a concerted effort to sustain the gains of the Institute in supporting governments in their various laudable initiatives, we would maintain the existing cordial relationship between the government, media and the Institute as a strategy for bridging possible information gap. We would through the instrumentality of the
IInstitute’s relevant directorates raise the quality and regularity of our information outlets especially on critical national issues. We are deepening the Institute’s advocacy roles in the economy to ensure that ICAN retains its status as the number one voice in accounting and other related matters in the country.
ICAN as a body has supported the Federal government in the fight against corruption. Do you think the gains of the corruption fight have surpassed the shortcomings?
As I alluded earlier, ICAN has been at the forefront of supporting governments’ anti-corruption crusade through our Whistle Blower’s Fund and ICAN AI. Also in 2017, ICAN keyed into the new standard of ethics for professional accountants issued by the International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants (IESBA). The standard sets out a first-of-its-kind framework to guide professional accountants in what actions to take in the public interest when they become aware of a potential illegal act, known as Non-compliance with Laws And Regulations, or NOCLAR, committed by a client or employer. We continue to encourage all our members to abide by the spirit of this standard. We also have various disciplinary measures to deal decisively with any member found to be engaged in any form of professional or financial misconduct.
These are ICAN’S initiatives to support government at finding a permanent solution to the perennial problem of corruption in our polity. Over the years, governments at all levels have also made conscious efforts at frontally addressing the problems of corruption in the country. I wish to state that some progress has been made in the fight against corruption. For instance, in 2018 we witnessed some high profile convictions of past governors coupled with several other convictions by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.
However, the achievements must be deepened as they still represent a tiny fraction of the corrupt tendencies in our society. Nigeria is rated by Transparency International (TI) as the 144 least corrupt nation out of 175 countries, according to the institution’s 2018 Corruption Perceptions Index. This is not surprising as the country is still bedevilled with cases of money laundering, illicit financial outflows, budget padding, contract inflation, amongst several other financial misappropriations.
Nigeria has over the years had problems with budget design and implementation. What do you think is the way forward?
It is worrisome that the country is still in the throes of poor budget process. Budget, being the bedrock for all financial planning in a fiscal year, is not only critical for government activities but helps in decision making and projections for investment purposes by stakeholders in the private sector. Hence, the experience in the last of couple of years where budgets were not signed until mid-year tells a lot of discouraging stories about the country’s economic performance. For instance, the 2019 Appropriation Bill was signed by the President in May 2019. This implies that no serious financial transactions took place by the various Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAS) of government until June. Technically, one can say the economy was at a halt for the first five months of the year since the inability of stakeholders in the private sector to know government’s direction would also constitute a drag in their investment drive. This leaves much to be desired.
As we all know, the weak budgeting infrastructure in the country is not due to lack of capacity or experienced professionals. Essentially, undue political interference is a major challenge that has bedevilled the country’s achievement of an efficient and effective budget system. A country’s budget is such a sensitive financial instrument that should not be turned into a pawn in the chess of politics.
There is also the need to critically look into most of the assumptions underlying our budget preparations. Such assumptions should not be based on a parochial interest of any sitting government but rather on a holistic analysis of the country’s economic dynamics. A situation where a larger percentage of the budget, sometimes about 70%, is servicing recurrent expenditure does not also portray a country poised at deepening investments in capital expenditure that spur growth and development.
What is ICAN as an Institute doing to resolve the challenges pose by other professional bodies seeking to compete with you on the training of accounting professionals?
The ICAN brand stands tall among other professional accounting bodies in the country. The market has a way of differentiating products and left to ICAN we do not nurse any fear as to the quality of our various certification programmes. As far as the Institute is concerned, it is not a challenge to us.
As I earlier noted, however, the need to uphold professionalism and good ethical conduct in the profession compels us to support governments and create the necessary awareness on the need to be wary of any tendencies that aim to cheapen professionalism in the country. The roles of professionals are very strategic in a nation’s development that the Institute would not fold its arms and allow professionalism to be commercialised. It is therefore not about ICAN but about professionalism in the country and the danger of allowing various professions to be populated with charlatans.
When you look at economic indices like high unemployment rate, rise in food prices, among others, what advice do you have for the present Federal government to address these issues?
While some progress has been made in the country in terms of moderating inflation and restoring stability in the country’s foreign exchange, there are however a lot of grounds to cover. A dispassionate look at the various economic indices in the country suggests that there is the need for deliberate efforts to address the economic challenges. Several rating agencies have scored the country low on major parameters required to provide the enabling environment that would stimulate inclusive growth and development in the country.
Take the unemployment rate, for instance, which stood at about 23 percent according to the latest report of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). This figure excludes the underemployment rate of about 16 percent. As an Institute, we believe this is a time bomb. To urgently remedy this ugly situation, entrepreneurship development initiatives should be rigorously implemented for the country’s teeming youth population. Any initiative on entrepreneurship development without creating the enabling business environment would only amount to motion without movement. Hence, the infrastructural base of the country should be revamped. A Public-partnership Arrangements might be the low hanging fruits the country can exploit.
Tagging Nigeria as the poverty capital of the world should keep all stakeholders awake. The different poverty alleviation programmes would require proper monitoring and evaluation to ensure the country derives value from these initiatives. The educational system of the country should be refocused to make Nigerian graduates problem solvers and not job seekers.
The security challenge in the country has also reached a highly worrisome dimension that to call for a state of emergency in the security framework of the country would not be out of place. No meaningful growth can be achieved in an environment of intense ethnic and tribal tensions.
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