Make financial reporting, auditing more useful to shareholders - Veep calls on accountants
By Masahudu Ankiilu Kunateh, Ghanadot

Accra, July 26, Ghanadot - The Vice President, H.E. John Dramani Mahama has called on accountants in Ghana to improve ways of making the processes of financial reporting and auditing more useful to shareholders in the wake of the global uncertainty and jittery among investors.

This he said is a sure way to prevent intrusive regulations that prevent effective competition among businesses.

Mr. Mahama made this call in speech read for him by a Deputy Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Mr. Seth Tekpeh, at the 9th graduation ceremony of Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) Ghana, in Accra over the week.

According to him, “As government work to enhance macroeconomic and financial stability the investment opportunities provide a big challenge for Chartered Accountants. For Ghana, the goal of achieving middle income status in short time will add to the challenge that professional bodies must face in producing the right caliber of human capitals”.

Similarly, the upsurge in demand for electronic software in the public and private sectors means that professional accountants must be in the forefront of designing or adapting appropriate accounting and audit software that prevents abuse of systems and procedures.

To this end, the Vice President challenged ACCA and other professional bodies to work with the universities and other tertiary institutions to meet these goals.

It is probably time for our universities to revisit the subject of running professional accounting courses on part-time basis to benefit more students who wish to become accountants.

In this regard, the present arrangement with ACCA, where non-degree students of the association can also study for the Oxford Brookes Degree in Accounting is worth considering, Mr. Mahama lauded.

He called on the ACCA and other professional bodies to increase their activities in all the regions of the country.

This will give opportunities to all Ghanaians who have the ambition to pursue the ACCA professional qualification.

The Chairperson of ACCA Ghana Network Panel, Mrs. Sylvia Lawson advised newly qualified accountants to be transparent in their dealings so as to promote the image of the accountancy profession.

Given overview of ACCA, the Country Manager of ACCA Ghana, Mrs. Gifty Ofori said there are currently over 16,000 (active and non-active) ACCA students and almost 1000 members and affiliates, working in the public and private sectors in the country.

She mentioned that the ACCA presently runs five programmes, namely Certified Accounting Technician (CAT), which trains young and enterprising youth as middle level accountants (accountant clerks), ACCA Professional-trained professional accountants, ACCA Diploma in Financial Management, Bachelor of Science in Applied Accounting and MBA programme for members.

The Finance Director of Ghacem, Mr. Ignatius Asare, who chaired the function appealed to the newly qualified chartered accountants to constantly upgrade themselves to make them abreast with modern trends of accounting practices.

He advised them to always abide the code and ethics of the ACCA standards in order to execute their duties well.

 

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