Accountancy Bodies Seek Protection of the term “Accountant”

The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) and other Accountancy bodies through the Consultative Committee of Accountancy Bodies (CCAB) is campaigning for legal protection for the term ‘accountant’. It believes that, in the same way that the term ‘solicitor’ means a client will have the services of a qualified solicitor, the term ‘accountant’ should denote the service is provided by a fully qualified accountant. A petition has since been lodged with the UK government (http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Accountants/).

Presently, the term ‘accountant’ is not defined or protected by law. Anyone is able to set him or herself up as an accountant without professional training. This is a serious issue in terms of consumer protection. Every year, qualified accountants lose business to people who purport to offer accountancy services, but who are not qualified, regulated, or familiar with the latest changes to law and accounting standards. The public do not know the difference between a qualified accountant and someone calling themselves an accountant, and often end up getting wrong advice. Small businesses and individuals, believing they have engaged qualified accountants, are at risk from harmful and costly business advice from unqualified, unregulated, possibly uninsured advisers.

It observes that although some unqualified accountants may do good work, an unqualified accountant is not answerable to any regulatory body and so cannot be disciplined; further notes that legal protection of title is viewed as essential in professions where there is a substantial degree of public interest, for example for doctors, barristers, solicitors and auditors; feels that greater accountability needs to be introduced; and urges the Government to consider introducing legal protection for the term ‘accountant’.”

This campaign follows an increasing number of cases where people have been given poor advice by individuals claiming to be qualified accountants, when they have little or no professional training or qualifications to deal with complex financial issues. Too frequently, members of the public and small businesses believe they have engaged qualified accountants only to find out, to their loss, that the individuals are unqualified and not competent to act on their behalf.

According to the petition, the use of the term ‘’accountant’’ should be restricted to members of the prescribed accountancy bodies, who are subject to a range of significant regulatory and monitoring measures.

My take:
1-The ACCA and CCAB should clarify how Accountants trained at degree level or any other qualification should be viewed.

2-There is evidence to suggest that qualified accountants have often offered bad advice or service.History is repreat with examples such as Anderson, the Auditors and business advisors of the collapsed Enron.

3-Further clarification ought to be sought also on how such law would be enforced in different legal jurisdictions considering that the Accountancy bodies are global associations.

4-This campaign is viewed in many quarters as an infringement of the human rights of experienced and honourable accountants and as a crafty ploy to deprive accountants of other qualifications other than those qualified with the CCAB of their livelihood, acquire their businesses/clients without compensation and obtain a service monopoly which ultimately will be detrimental to consumer choice and potentially result in increasingly exorbitant accountancy and taxation fees.

5-There is also a danger that it will worsen unemployment figures as those affected will become jobless.

Accountancy Bodies Seek Protection of the term “Accountant”

The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) and other Accountancy bodies through the Consultative Committee of Accountancy Bodies (CCAB) is campaigning for legal protection for the term ‘accountant’. It believes that, in the same way that the term ‘solicitor’ means a client will have the services of a qualified solicitor, the term ‘accountant’ should denote the service is provided by a fully qualified accountant. A petition has since been lodged with the UK government (http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Accountants/).

Presently, the term ‘accountant’ is not defined or protected by law. Anyone is able to set him or herself up as an accountant without professional training. This is a serious issue in terms of consumer protection. Every year, qualified accountants lose business to people who purport to offer accountancy services, but who are not qualified, regulated, or familiar with the latest changes to law and accounting standards. The public do not know the difference between a qualified accountant and someone calling themselves an accountant, and often end up getting wrong advice. Small businesses and individuals, believing they have engaged qualified accountants, are at risk from harmful and costly business advice from unqualified, unregulated, possibly uninsured advisers.

It observes that although some unqualified accountants may do good work, an unqualified accountant is not answerable to any regulatory body and so cannot be disciplined; further notes that legal protection of title is viewed as essential in professions where there is a substantial degree of public interest, for example for doctors, barristers, solicitors and auditors; feels that greater accountability needs to be introduced; and urges the Government to consider introducing legal protection for the term ‘accountant’.”

This campaign follows an increasing number of cases where people have been given poor advice by individuals claiming to be qualified accountants, when they have little or no professional training or qualifications to deal with complex financial issues. Too frequently, members of the public and small businesses believe they have engaged qualified accountants only to find out, to their loss, that the individuals are unqualified and not competent to act on their behalf.

According to the petition, the use of the term ‘’accountant’’ should be restricted to members of the prescribed accountancy bodies, who are subject to a range of significant regulatory and monitoring measures.

My take:
1-The ACCA and CCAB should clarify how Accountants trained at degree level or any other qualification should be viewed.

2-There is evidence to suggest that qualified accountants have often offered bad advice or service.History is repreat with examples such as Anderson, the Auditors and business advisors of the collapsed Enron.

3-Further clarification ought to be sought also on how such law would be enforced in different legal jurisdictions considering that the Accountancy bodies are global associations.

4-This campaign is viewed in many quarters as an infringement of the human rights of experienced and honourable accountants and as a crafty ploy to deprive accountants of other qualifications other than those qualified with the CCAB of their livelihood, acquire their businesses/clients without compensation and obtain a service monopoly which ultimately will be detrimental to consumer choice and potentially result in increasingly exorbitant accountancy and taxation fees.

5-There is also a danger that it will worsen unemployment figures as those affected will become jobless.

Suprises at the Euro 2008

The ongoing Euro 2008, taking place in Austria and Swirtzland has not been short of suprises. Firstly the German 3-2 Portugal result which many never thought a team with probably the world player of the year (Ronaldo) could lose.Then came the Croatia -v- Turkey game in which Turkey won to proceed to semi-finals on penalties. But probably the biggest shock and my disappointed was the game Holland crushed to Russia in which the grand master Andre Arshavin run the show. Holland promised to be a force to be reckoned with at the start of the tournament but Arshavin and his Russian team-mates proved to us that the Dutch were simply over-rated. He was suspended in the first 2 games at the start of the tournament one of which, Russia lost to Spain 4-1. Tonight, the Russians have the opportunity to reply as they face Spain in the Semi-final game to determine who will face the Germans in the final.

But perhaps the most important person for Russia is their coach, Guus Hiddink. He has proven again that he is a genius who knows how to motivate under-dogs to realise their potential. To take Andre Arshavin to the tournament knowing that he would miss the 1st two games takes some courage and stubbornness. But this is the sort of judgement which separates real football managers from pretenders. High risk decisions are the most rewarding. He won numerous trophies in his native Holland, took South Korea to the Semi finals of the 2002 world cup, then did tremendous job at PSV then took Australia to the 2006 world cup. Australia played brilliantly against Italy but for the cruel penalty with dashed their chances of progressing.

The Germans progressed to the finals last night after seeing off the brave boys of Turkey. Whoever said that Football can be cruel was right. For starters, I did not see German winning this game as they were completely outplayed in every department but they took advantage of 3 Turkish mistakes to circumvert the danger.

The University Quota system

I have read sentimental comments on both nyasanet and malawitalk in relation to the announcement that the University of Malawi will invoke the quota system of selecting freshmen to University. The selection criteria was abandoned some few years back for it was perceived to be discriminatory. There is a court determination to this effect (the dictum in this case would be pursuassive against the quota system)
I am against the policy. Some people think that those of us that are against this policy are doing so because:

(a) we come from the North and that,
(b)Northerners take themselves to be more intelligent than people from other regions

To begin with, my being against the idea of restricting University selection based on number of places allocated per district has nothing to do with where I come from. It is purely bourne out of the view that a candidate who scores well at MSCE should not be victimised based on where they come from.

Kamuzu Banda used this system to victimise students from the North and although things have changed in Malawi due to Democracy, as a Northerner, I have concerns that proponents of this system may at some point abuse it against my kids.

To argue that Northerners are complaining because they feel to be more intelligent than people from other regions is foolhardy. There is no scientific evidence to suggest that Northerners are more intelligent.The point is that any sane person should appreciate that the quota selection will discriminate some deserving students from one district who qualify more than others from another district but are left out because their district quota is exhausted. This is regardless of where they come from.

There is simply a thin line between equality of selection which the University Council is attempting to achieve and discrimination. I hope that the council members realise that a policy that achieves equality at the expence of discrimination is not equittable after all. The other social ill of the system is that it will result in most students facing identity crisis. How would a student whose mother comes from Rumphi and father from Mangochi choose where he/she comes from?

If the present system has resulted in some districts not benefiting, where is the evidence? The problem of poor education standards in some districts cannot be solved from the top. The governement ought to channel its energies wisely by ensuring that primary and secondary schools throughout the country have the same if not similar resources. The quota system at university level has some political overtones. Unless equality is achieved in development projects at regional level, the quota system being proposed sounds like pruning while all we need is to uproot the problem. It is worth noting that some cultural practices in some districts does not propagate a hardworking spirit amongst students. Some NGOs are working hard to discourage such practices but it takes time to change peoples’ attitude. This is what is needed at the moment. But why should students from certain parts of the country pay for the misdeed of other districts cultural dysfunctionalities?