Oluchi Chibuzor
The Chief Executive Officer of the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria (FRC), Dr. Rabiu Olowo, has said the Accounting Development Tool (ADT) in Nigeria project would help align the country with the global baseline for accounting practices.
Olowo, said this yesterday, when the Netherlands Consul-General in Lagos, Michel Deelen, paid him a courtesy visit to discuss the ADT in Nigeria project in partnership with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
According to the FRC boss, “This allows us to align with the global baseline for accounting practices and this means a lot to us. So, this gives us an opportunity to say thank you and one of the important reasons you are visiting this morning is to check how well that is going; this means that you are not just giving in your financial resources but also checking to see how well this is meeting with the expected output.”
“There is no better avenue to make this kind of investment other than strengthening regulatory authorities like ourselves. Our vision is to enhance regulatory assurance, to embed transparency, accountability and ensure that the users of financial statements can rely on them.”
Speaking further, Olowo, explained that the current economic hardship, according to research, encourages companies to do wrong things when it comes to financial reporting, which requires improved regulatory oversight.
“We are all aware of what is going on in Nigeria today, economic challenges or hardship if you like; research has shown that this period stimulates and encourages companies to do the wrong thing especially when it comes to financial reporting.
“For us as regulators we are very alert and awake to our responsibilities and your investment in Accounting Development Tools will only further strengthen our capacity to do our job very well. So we want you to leave here with the assurance that we are committed and not just taking on the project but to seeing the outcome as delivered,” he explained.
The ADT is a comprehensive toolkit designed to evaluate the legal, institutional and human resource requirements necessary to enhance the accounting and corporate reporting infrastructure of a country.
It enables countries to compare their capacity against international standards and best practices in accounting regulation.
Commending the FRC, Deelen, said the regulatory body deserved support.
According to him, “The Nigerian context sometimes makes companies be creative in their book keeping and we all know that is not good or beneficial to anybody also not to shareholders and also not to the public at large.
“So it is crucially important that you really have to do this to the best of your abilities and where we can assist you we will. It is interesting that many people will probably think but you have accounting firms who do this. In the Netherlands we believe a lot in the accounting firms, but after the financial crisis we realised we can’t rely on accounting firms anymore because they are part of the system.
“As a result of that there were many changes made in which accounting firms in the Netherlands actually operate and their responsibilities,” he added.
