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A call has been made to governments at all levels to strategize and redouble their efforts towards tackling the monster called corruption in the country.
The call was made by the chairman of the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Nigeria (ICPAN), Rivers/ Bayelsa chapter, Professor Ezekiel Edem Williams during the Mandatory Continuing Professional Training (MCPT) held in Port Harcourt recently.
Professor Williams told journalists that the ICPAN programme is designed to help managers of the economy keep their books in a manner that prevents fraud and enhances accountability and productivity.
He reiterated ICPAN determination to liaise with government and proffer solution on how to sanitize the system so as to rid it of corrupt practices.
Professor Williams urged government to jettison cash system which has financial escapes and encourage malpractice in the financial accounting system.
He said: “In checking corruption, we prepare finance officers and managers, who have knowledge of how records are kept. We have identified that there is corruption on the ground. We have to advise government to adopt a system of accounting devoid of corruption. We instruct government to prepare their system on accrual basis, which prevents fraud but rather enhance accountability, which is our watch word, and ushers in transparency.
“Cash bases of accounting operating in the government, encourages corruption. Our aim is to train and retraining our members to fit in the system. Most of our members are managing resources of the government; we train them to ensure they put in their best in practice,” Professor Williams said.
In the same vein, National President of ICPAN, Dr. Mrs. Oge Okeke said the primary purpose of MCPT is to acquaint members with the latest development in the accounting profession, and to enable them handle challenges in the system.
She added that the members were also trained on forensic accounting, aiming to forestall fraud. She said, “The aim is to train and retrain the members on issues surrendering the country. We train them on how to handle their job, how to manage funds while doing business with capital, ethics of the profession and forensic accounting. We do it in such a way as to prevent fraud and we set our record to detect and prevent malpractice in the system.”
Dr. Okeke however, advised members to demonstrate good character and discipline at all times, adding that good character is an asset which all members must possess.
The training, which ran from September 19 to 20, 2018, had paper presentation by Mr. Ihe Ndubuisi John (‘The Financial Reporting and Sustainable Development’), L.C. Obara (‘Changes and Public Accountants, a Global Perspective’), Leyira Christian Micah (‘Emerging Trends in a Global Financial Regulations and Compliance’) and Akpan S. Umoh (‘Accounting Practice in the Public Sector; issues and challenges’).
