The National President of Association of National Accountants of Nigeria (ANAN), Rev. Canon Prof. Chuka Osisioma has urged leaders across the country to imbibe the culture of sustainable consumption as a means of protecting the future for younger generations.
“We seem to be consuming our present and our future. If we continue with the rate at which we are going, our children will not have a future to inherit”, Prof. Osisioma told participants at the first session of 2023 Mandatory Continuing Professional Development (MCPD) programme in Abuja on Tuesday.
The 3-day event which started on Monday had as the theme “Understanding Financial Disclosures On Sustainability”.
The ANAN President cautioned leaders against bequeathing future of emptiness to the younger generation, urging for moderation in consumption of the nation’s treasury.
He said sustainability in reporting is an attempt to ensure that those who will take charge of tomorrow are not robbed of value to build on, urging accountants to ensure that their reporting has quality of sustainability.
He said the theme was carefully chosen to enable paper presenters and the body of accountants do their best in adding their voices to the campaign for a productive future.
Declaring the first session of 2023 MCPD open, the acting clerk to the National Assembly, Sani Magaji Tambawal said the theme was timely considering the recent developments in the country’s financial sector.
“The programme is timely because it comes at a time our financial accounting system is so opaque and falling short of integrity, hence the need to expose the accounting profession to expert review, interrogation and solution is more than anything else of urgent importance”, he said.
According to Tambawal, financial disclosure demands a transparent accounting system that allows private and public entities to provide details of their income, asset and liability using a financial statement supported by document.
He expressed displeasure that World Bank and other institutions in finance related matters have faulted Nigeria’s financial reporting practices as substandard and not in tandem with world best practices.
He insists that a strong financial service sector can propel economic growth while a frail financial sector is capable of pulling down a nation’s economy.
Tambawal appealed to participants to maximize the knowledge gained at the MCPD to inject openness, transparency and integrity in the practice of accounting profession and financial system in Nigeria.
In this regard, he assured that the bill sent to the National Assembly by ANAN will in due time be passed into law as efforts are ongoing to make it an Act.
In his remarks, the chairman FCT Inland Revenue Service (FCT-FIRS) Haruna Abdullahi said the FCT has not explored the possibility of funding its budget through internally generated revenue.
While alleging a poor culture of filing tax returns in FCT, Abdullahi called on professionals to lend support in the campaign for tax clearance certificates for individuals and entities.
This he said will give citizens right to interrogate and hold political leaders accountable, stressing that payment of taxes in order to be more politically conscious.
Host of the MCPD and the chairman of ANAN FCT 1 Abuja branch, Elisha Andrew Shavah expressed gratitude to the national leadership of the association for its support and thanked members for their cooperation in making his first outing since his election a huge success.
According to Shavah, false financial disclosure is one of the challenges the country faces, a situation he underlined is being fuelled by lack of transparency and accountability in the system.
He charged accountants to as professionals contribute their quota in strengthening transparency in financial disclosure.
