The Chartered Institute of Treasury Management (CITM) has raised concerns over a bill for the proposed amendment of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) Act 1965.

In a submission at a public hearing on the bill in Abuja on Wednesday, Registrar/Chief Executive, CITM, Olumide Adedoyin, said it was not the move to amend the 1965 Act that is of a major concern but the content of such proposed amendments.

Adedoyin in his response to the Bill, noted Nigeria is believed to have hit a population scale of 200 million of which the total population of the professional and student members of ICAN is yet to reach half of a million.

The CITM Registrar also pointed out that its explanatory memorandum states that the “Bill seeks to amend the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria Act 1965 to amongst other things make the Act more responsive to the changing needs of the Institute’s members and address the emerging trends in the Nigerian Economic Environment.”

He said “considering the beneficial effect of the members of the Institute over and above the lot of more than 99% in population other non-ICAN members in Nigeria appears to be at variance with ‘integrity’, an integral part of the Motto of ICAN.”

He added, “Secondly, Amendment of Section 3 which is proposed to replace Section 3 of the Principal Act provides a governing body of the Institute to be known as the Council made up of 30 members. Six of these Council members are to be appointed by the Minister provided each appointee is a Chartered Accountant.

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“The remaining 24 members which are to be chosen via election are expected to consist of 19 members of the Institute in practice as Accountants and eleven not in practice. For the sake of ‘accuracy’ another Motto of ICAN, the sum of 19 and 11 is 30 (19 + 11 = 30) not 24 as expressly stated in the Bill. How would the extra six members be accommodated in a Council whose membership must not exceed 30?”

Adedoyin said of greater significance is the new Section 15 to be inserted titled: Areas of Practice of a Chartered Accountant, and creation of a New Section 15.

He said the new Section has proposed that an Accountant who has passed the examination of the Institute (ICAN) and earned the title “Chartered Accountant” be qualified to offer the following 13 services.

The services are Auditor, Reporting Accountant, Financial Accounting and Corporate Reporting Services Practitioner, Financial Management Practitioner, Corporate Services Practitioner, Governance Risk and Compliance Services PrPractitioner and Tax Practitioner.

Others are Investigations and Forensic Accounting Practitioner Accounting Information Systems Practitioner, Insolvency Practitioner, Public Finance Practitioner Management Consultant, and Financial Advisory Services Practitioner

He said, “There is nothing wrong for a Chartered Accountant to be regarded as expert in these 13 distinctive areas of services and even much more captured by the Amendment Bill as ‘other ancillary areas of Practice which may by Regulations made by the Council subject to the approval of the Minister be designated as services constituting the practice of a Chartered Accountant.’

“It should however be recognized that Accounting and Accountancy (the practice of the knowledge of Accounting) is a profession of 3 Rs viz: Recording, Reviewing (Audit and Assurance services) and Reporting.”

He said any discipline or practice which does not in its entirety belong to this exclusive preserve of the Accountant is ancillary services to the practice of the profession of Accounting.

“Little is publicly known about the complexities and intricacies of the rendering of accounting services every day in the operation of entities across each national economy worldwide. Many of us here today who are not tutored in the culture, knowledge and understanding of a Professional Accountant would not be able to visualize the reason why for each transaction that takes place in every economic entity worldwide, the resident Accountant performs three non-mutually exclusive but dependent actions namely recognition, measurement and disclosure.

“When any Accountant looks away from these onerous task, problem ensues, fraud is given a free space to perpetrate itself, misappropriation and misallocation occurs and financial statement become an ‘unfair representation’ of the underlying transactions in the books of the affected entity thus making the report published thereon unreliable and the work of the concerned accountant defective and a colossal waste,” he said.

He added that seven other areas under the proposed new Section 15 of the Bill identified to fall within the purview of the practice of Chartered Accountant suffered the same demerit as above under different specializations.

These areas of specialization and/or expertise are: Investigations and Forensic Accounting Practitioner, Accounting Information Systems Practitioner, Insolvency Practitioner, Public Finance PrPractitioner Management Consultant, Financial Advisory Services Practitioner, and other ancillary areas of Practice which may by Regulations made by the Council subject to the approval of the Minister be designated as services constituting the practice of a Chartered Accountant.

“It must be understood that to be an expert in a field requires more than a brief study or sitting for examination on part of the core knowledge which make up that field of specialization. Two students on two different courses of Economics and Accounting will enroll for and take Microeconomics and Macroeconomics at their first two years in University the same.

“The one enrolled for Economics continued thereafter to study for different aspects of Economics while the Accounting student continued with courses in Accounting. But before completion of their respective study they are likely to meet on Business Economics or Managerial Economics. Yet at graduation each will receive a degree award in the field where he has taken more specialized courses for two or three years of his undergraduate course in the university.

“The same is true for two subjects on Taxation amidst about 16 subjects in ICAN syllabus that does not make them of equal understanding and expertise as students of CITN who have to undergo up to 8 – 10 or more tax concentrated subjects in taxation and tax practices,” he said.

The CITM raised other observations about the bill.

He said the present world operates on a knowledge economy where innovations in core competence areas deliver premium performance of excellence but overspread activities need to be streamlined to achieve better performance.