Governor Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun state has declared that misappropriation of funds and financial corruption might not be possible if Accountants have not colluded with politicians and people in the position of authority to siphon and embezzle Nigeria’s resources which are for socio-economic growth and development.
The Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria decried that lack of accountability, mismanagement of resources, financial leakages and wastages and misappropriation of funds being perpetuated by politicians in connivance with some Accountants as a bane of socio-economic growth and development.
Speaking at the Maiden Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria Forum of Political Ambassadors Convention tagged, “Leveraging on Accountants’ Integrity for Political Success” and held in Abeokuta at the weekend, Amosun noted that Accountants must uphold integrity as a guiding principle if Nigeria must move forward.
The governor, who was represented by Adewale Oshinowo, Commissioner for Finance, said, misappropriation of funds, corruption might not be possible if Accountants have not assisted them (Politicians) in meddling with figures, but if you know that you have a profession, and you are accountable to them and the motto of the profession is honesty and accuracy, the motto will force you to do what is right.
“You can see the new motto we have for Accountants in Politics, it says Politics with Integrity which means when you move in, you have to go with your integrity intact and you don’t allow your integrity to be stained, that is what we are talking about by bringing all the politicians in Accounting Profession to have this integrity imbibed in their lifestyle.”
When the governor was asked about the possible punishment ICAN should mete out to any member found wanting in this regard, he challenged members to be good Ambassadors of ICAN wherever they find themselves by upholding integrity and accountability, and urged ICAN not to hesitate to withdraw the Certificate of culpable members as stipulated by ICAN Code of Conduct.
He said, “In ICAN we have Code of Conduct Committee and they will level a punishment on you, even to the level of taking your Certificate away from you, because if you look at the Certificate, it is expressly stated that the Certificate belongs to ICAN not you, but given to you to use, because you are qualified to use it as a Chartered Accountant.”
Earlier, Titus Soetan, President, Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) stated that since ICAN and its members could not isolate themselves from Nigerian politics, it is imperative on ICAN to organise Forum of Political Ambassadors (IFOPA) Convention where issued as regards good governance and accountability were discussed among Political Ambassadors from ICAN.
“Over the years, we have seen that when you are not there, the people who are there we do it the way they know how to do it and so, the people who have been ruling us whether they are educated or not, they don’t have principles, don’t have anything, they just rule us according to dictates of their own minds, and so, we don’t have results.
“That is why we are saying the professionals cannot exclude themselves from politics.
“Not every professional can go into active political participation, but those who are inclined, we will encourage them, we will support them and then, they will have role models to look up to, for advice, for counselling because that will make our society, our country to be better governed and then, we have better results than we are having now”, he submitted.
RAZAQ AYINLA, Abeokuta
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