Laide Raheem, Abeokuta
Femi Ogunsanya was recently installed as the 16th chairman of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN), Abeokuta District Society, Ogun State. Shortly after his investiture ceremony, he spoke with on his plans for the next two years and the trending issue of border closure.
Plans for ICAN Abeokuta District Society in the next two years
Within the next two years, we have set out a five-point agenda for ourselves. The first is to create a website for Abeokuta District Society of ICAN, so that from outside Ogun State, Nigeria and even the world at large, they will know what is happening and what we are doing. Secondly, we want to invest in capacity building and human development; that is the training of members. Three, we want to key in into the Catch-Them-Young programme of the Institute. The programme is all about trying to encourage the younger ones from the secondary school level to start seeing accounting as a good profession and we need to let them see reasons why they should take it up as a profession. Four, we intend to reinvigorate the activities of our secretariat and make it more effective so that people will know what we are doing. Then, we want to lay the foundation for the construction the second phase of our secretariat building. What we have there is just the first phase. We want to look at the possibility of putting up the second phase of our secretariat in place and we plan to do that in the first quarter of 2020.
Accountants and corruption
ICAN as a body has a disciplinary committee and any erring member or any member that is found wanting will be sanctioned accordingly. But in a situation where there is no formal report to the Institute, there is little it can do. Once there is a formal report about an erring member, appropriate steps will be taken to investigate and once the person is indicted, his license will be revoked and certificate withdrawn which is what we have been doing. At every point in time, members are now cautious in taking part in corruption deeds because they all know the implication. This is the why you rarely see a professional accountant engages in corruption.
ICAN’s partnership with government in war against corruption
The Institute launched a scheme last year called “Anti-corruption Index.” The purpose of that is to partner with the government to reduce corruption at all levels. That is the more reason accountability, transparency and accuracy is always our watchword. So, we have been partnering with government – local, state and national – so as to ensure that corruption is reduced to the barest minimum.
Border closure
People are only looking at the immediate effect, but we see it as something that will benefit the country in the long run. The border is closed now, it means you cannot import or smuggle rice via land borders and what’s the implication of that? It means we have to start thinking of expanding our local rice production in Nigeria. What would be the overall effect of that on the economy of Nigeria? Employment will be created, more income will be generated, even government will generate income in form of taxes. I just want to implore people to be patient. Once we are patient, within the next one or two years, we’ll get out of it. The major impact I believe people are talking of is because they have not been buying rice at the rate they were getting it. Is rice the only food in Nigeria? No! If you don’t have rice, switch to yam, garri or any other type of food. Let us think of what we can do to reposition the economy. Personally, I am fully in support of it. By just opening the borders for all sorts of things to be coming in, the government is losing a lot of revenue. Materials are brought into the country through unethical means. They bypass the normal route. Government is supposed to generate import duties but tese, they are not paying. Sometimes, they bring in inferior materials and by so doing, they are killing our own local industries here. So, I’m in support of it. I will just implore our people to be patient and things will eventually work out.
Plans to acquaint members with new technologies
We have a programme called MCPD (Mandatory Continuous Professional Development). So, on a regular basis, we train and retrain ourselves and the essence of this is to acquaint ourselves with the current situation around the world. I don’t need to visit your company or factory before I know what’s going on there. These facilities are there, only that we need to continue to explore and buy into it. So, I intend to focus on this area as well, for the continued capability development of my members in Abeokuta District Society.