ANAN RETREAT
on
 Good governance code for
professional accountancy
organisations (PAOs)
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A presentation by:
Emmanuel G. Ogbonnaya MSc, FCCA, FCA, CCFS, ACTI
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Topic:
 Professional Accountancy
Organisations (PAOs) obligations
to students, members and the
public.
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PAOs’ obligation to students
Fair and Transparent admission policy
(recognise prior learning capabilities)
Consistently applied across years
Training and Teaching Procedures
(emphasis on professional competence)
Reviewed for relevance regularly
Examination and conferment of membership
(emphasis on professional competence)
Harness competence and capabilities
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Professional Accountancy
Organisations (PAOs)
Obligations to Students
1.Fair and transparent admission policy for all
potential students
 a policy to ensure that an individual seeking to begin
a programme of Professional Accounting Education
that would lead to membership of a PAO is fair and
transparent i.e. every student is considered on
merit based on meeting the PAO’s minimum
requirement for admission
 the policy must set out a minimum entry requirement
that should be equivalent to that for admission into a
recognised university degree or its equivalent;
 the policy must be made publicly available and can
be accessed closely or remotely either electronically
or in hardcopies through network of offices;
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PAOs’ obligations to students cont’d
 it is not unusual to expect a candidate
commencing a programme in accounting
education to do so with some level of
capabilities i.e. skills, some values, ethics and
attitudes and students should be encouraged
to disclose such information.
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PAOs’ obligations to Students Cont’d
 however, of importance is the extent of these
capabilities, which could also influence candidate’s
entry point into professional accounting education
(e.g. AAT-without first degree, NCE, OND/HND,
BA/BSc), thus the capabilities that come with each of
these qualifications must be assessed;
 PAOs have obligation to ensure that an individual
embarking on a programme of professional
accounting education do so with appropriate level of
prior education and learning relevant to provide the
necessary foundation to acquire the professional
knowledge, skills, values, ethics and attitudes that
are essential to become a professional accountant

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PAOs’ obligations to Students cont’d
 They should carefully draw up training programmes
for students of varying capabilities to ensure that
each stream of students is provided the required
accounting education programme in accordance
with their strengths at entry point, which could be:
 post graduate entry level;
 post secondary school entry level; or
 at some point between higher education and
below an undergraduate degree
 a fair and transparent admission policy should also
recognise work experience, mature students,
candidates joining the programme part-way through
their career and other types of learning
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PAOs’ obligation to students
 There might also be some other types of
learning that PAOs would have to identify
and recognise as an acceptable entry
point/pathway into accounting education
 It should be said that whichever route, there
should be consistency with the overall
programme of professional accounting
education and must be inline with the laid
down accounting education programme
admission policy of the PAOs concerned.
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PAOs’ obligations to students cont’d
 In some cases PAOs will want some level of
assurance that it has high enough entry point to
guarantee the likely success in the programme of
professional accounting education. Therefore, assessment
of these entry-point obligations must be discharged with
high level of professional integrity and proficiency;
 It is likely that some PAOs would want to assess the
quality of the degree from tertiary institutions whose
qualifications are tendered for admission into their
professional accounting education programme.
 This is very important as research has shown that there is
a correlation between the quality of the degree tendered
for admission into professional accountancy education and
the successful completion of the programme.
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PAOs’ obligation to students
Further, it should also be said that there need
to be proper cross-checking of students’ entry
qualifications not only for the authenticity but
as noted earlier, to assess the standing of the
institutions whose qualifications are tendered
at the entry point of professional accounting
education programme given the varying levels
of quality of degrees from some universities.
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PAOs’ obligations to students cont’d
 In its Framework (FW) for International
Education Standards (IES) for professional
accountants, the International Education
Standards Board (IESB) notes that “overall
objective of accounting education is to
develop competent professional accountants”
and sets out a number of major training
headings under its educational concepts
required to build competence, which is
defined “as the ability to perform a work role
to a defined standard with reference to
working environment” FW para.12.
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PAOs’ obligation to Students Cont’d
 to demonstrate competence in a role, the standard
notes that, a professional accountant must possess
the necessary:
(a) professional knowledge;
(b) professional skills; and
(c ) professional values, ethics and attitudes.
 therefore, PAOs must be aware of, and should design
their accounting education programme to integrate
the basis for acquiring competencies built around the
above for the promotion of the profession when
individual professional accountancy graduates
become members of PAO. The ability to meet the
level of competence should be checked at entry
point
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PAOs obligations to students cont’d
 Training & Teaching Procedures:
It is important to stress here a computer
phraseology that says“ garbage in garbage
out”; so is true of teaching & training of
professional accountancy students. Poorly
designed and structured training and teaching
procedures will produce poorly prepared
graduate members with less than average level
of competence and capabilities. The effect of
this will run across generations; given that
one can not give what they do not have.
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Training & Teaching Procedures cont’d
 But how should our training and teaching
programmes be structured and packaged to
provide the needed competencies and
capabilities to PAOs’ students?
 This obligation can be addressed by
designing teaching and training programmes
that significantly highlight competencies
required at various study areas;
 it should also create awareness to students
of the related work profile in the particular
study area and performance objectives in the
study area as well.
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Training and Teaching Procedures cont’d
 The mode of training and teaching has continue
to change with the advent of ICT and various
other information technology infrastructure that
have made various training and teaching
methods very interactive.
 As a result, the different training modes or
methods must be identified including any
training and teaching modules that are
conducted electronically.
 Given the fair and transparent training and
teaching methods, PAOs must designed their
training and teaching modules to be consistent
across the different training and teaching
programmes.
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Training and Teaching procedures cont’d
 Procedures for highlighting importance of
competencies, work related profile and performance
objectives is shown below:
Training & Teaching Area for example: Management
Accounting (or Performance Management)
Competencies
•
•
•
•
demonstrate the concepts
and calculations for
measuring performance
for profit and non profit
motive organisations;
prepare budgets and
interpret their various
components;
identify and demonstrate
the different decision
making techniques
including their associated
risks
etc.
Key job related profile
on completion
•
•
•
Management
Accountant;
Group Accountant
etc.
Performance Objectives on
completion
•
•
•
•
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Able to prepare
financial information
for management;
Monitor and control
budget;
Communicate financial
and non-financial
information effectively
etc.
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PAOs’ obligations to students cont’d
Training and Teaching area for example: Audit &
Assurance
Competencies
•
•
•
•
demonstrate risk
assessment procedures
and determination of
materiality threshold;
have the knowledge and
ability to explain the scope
and purpose of assurance
engagements;
discuss and demonstrate
the fundamental principles
of professional ethics,
values and attitudes;
etc.
Key job related profile on
completion
•
•
•
•
•
External auditor
Internal auditor
Chief Financial Officer
(CFO)
Forensic accountant
etc.
Performance Objective on
completion
•
•
•
•
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Demonstrate and able to
apply professional ethics,
values and attitudes;
Apply the fundamental
principle for collection and
preservation of audit
evidence;
Understand and able to
prepare and evaluate audit
evidence
etc.
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PAOs’ obligations to students cont’d
 The emphasis here are competencies (as
opposed to just listed the topics and areas of
study in the syllabus) so that the students’
attentions are drawn.
 As much as possible the relevant
competencies are linked to certain job
related roles that students may be
interested on completion (an area most
PAOs’ training information fails to mention).
 Also for students to be made aware of the
identified key performance measurement
objectives that employers may use.
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PAOs’ obligations to students cont’d
 for the training programme to be fair, PAOs
must design it to ensure that a comparable level
of professional competence at the point of
qualification is attained by candidates from all
possible entry routes whether from the
secondary school, further or higher education;
 information about teaching and training locations
e.g. training location centres, whether training
could be obtained on-line from the PAO or their
accredited training organisations

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PAOs’ obligations to students cont’d
 Given the continuing relevance of work
experience, PAOs’ admission policy should
also include the recognition of work
experience, mature candidates and those
joining the part-way through their career and
with the varying degrees of students
capabilities.
 As noted before, there might be some other
types of learning that PAOs might want to
recognise as acceptable path into their
accounting education.
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PAOs’ obligations to students cont’d
 it should be said that which ever routes
that are chosen, there should be
consistency with the overall programme of
professional accounting between one
period and another;
 however, where there are updates in
professional standards, legal or regulatory
framework such should be reflected in the
training and teaching of the PAO as soon
as practicable to ensure students remain
well informed of the changes.
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PAOs’ obligations to students cont’d
 In respect of updates, PAOs should know that
they have a major obligation to students by
ensuring that major changes to their key training
subjects are brought to their attention and
arrangement made to incorporate the changes
into their training programme
 For example, update on IFRS, ISA, or other
professional standards such as ethics to
professional accountants or issuance of new
standards, there should have lapsed period after
which the changes are incorporated into the
students learning materials for example, 6
months after the effective date of the standards
or changes.
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PAOs’ obligations to students cont’d
 to provide students with the assurance of
high quality of the PAO’s qualification, it is
important that candidates from all
possible routes achieve a comparable level
of professional competence at the point of
qualification;
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PAOs’ obligation to Students cont’d
 it is very common this days to find PAOs,
having some pre-admission training
programme before finally admitting students
(such as ANAN conversion course programme
to assess the capabilities of individual
students through integrated classroom
coursework). This allows PAOs to gain such
guarantees and ANAN has this pre-admission
training programme in place i.e. conversion
course.
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PAOs’ obligations to students cont’d
 Examination and Membership conferment
 PAOs should design examinations that place
more emphasis on students’ competencies and
capabilities particularly at the point of exit (i.e.
final examinations) because the final
examinations precede the period of transition to
membership following qualification;
 The professional qualifying certificates certify the
holders as being competent to carry out work as
professional accountants;
 The certificates act as assurance both to the
student and the public that the holder can
perform work of a professional accountant.
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Examination and membership
Conferment cont’d
 Major questions to ask by PAOs in order to
identify their key obligations to students at
this point preceding membership include:
 Do our examinations particularly, the final
sections test integrated knowledge and
application on, for example, financial
reporting (separately, on IFRS, IPSAS and
IFRS for SMEs) by students?
 Can students of the PAO demonstrate
sufficient knowledge and understanding of
the application of ISAs, ISQC,
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Examination and membership conferment
cont’d
 Can they demonstrate professional ethics, values,
attitudes , understanding and are able to comply with
regulatory and legal frameworks that the public looks to
see in a professional accountant?
 With respect to financial and performance management
respectively, can our newly qualified demonstrate
integrated knowledge and application of the relevant
concepts required in real life situations?
 These questions are geared toward the appropriate level
of competencies and capabilities, which are generally
acquired through PAO’s training and are demonstrated
through training as well as through examinations.
 It needs to be said that more of these competencies and
capabilities will become focal points at membership
terrain.
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Examination and membership conferment
cont’d
 The table below summarises the recent
rating of newly qualified finance professionals
having a good working knowledge of
different finance areas;
 The results point PAOs to where they should
prepare students more for competence
acquisition bearing in mind the more likely
rewards in terms of job opportunities;
 financial management high rating shows how
critical a tool it is for all businesses and its
understanding and application is not
restricted to private sector.
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Rating (%age ) of newly qualified finance professionals having a good working
knowledge of different finance areas
68
Stakeholders relationship management
75
Law and Taxation
80
Audit and Assurance
83
Leadership and management
Strategy and innovation
86
Governance, risk and control
86
Sustainable managemnt accounting
87
Corporate reporting
93
Professionalism and ethics
94
Financial Management
0
96
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Source: ACCA , the complete finance professional 2013
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PAOs’ obligations to members
 As other members of the accountancy profession
would have noticed, professional accountants
have become so dependent on their professional
bodies to facilitate their development in all
aspects of their professional career in order to
remain relevant after qualification;
 This means that members are on regular basis
looking out for issues and information
emanating from their PAOs and these may well
include courses, seminars and conferences, etc.;
 This may even seem more burdensome if the
dependency is on more than one PAO, for
example, a member of ANAN and ICAN or ACCA
and ICAEW, for those who are members of
more than one PAO.
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PAOs’ obligations to members cont’d
But why should this be the case?
 well there is this believe that what
happens in and around the profession
would more likely be known first by the
PAOs; and
 this is said to be the case where or
because the relevant regulatory bodies
work closely with PAOs and would prefer
to disseminate information to professional
accountants through their relevant PAOs.
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PAOs’ obligations to members cont’d
 However, it needs to be said that PAOs do
not necessarily have privy to regulatory
information as and when it emerges
and/or the dissemination of emerging
information to their members;
 From observations, in most cases, the
major big accounting & auditing firms
who, one way or another, participate in
major international regulatory committees
would have greater privy to emerging
information in the profession than some
PAOs.
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PAOs’ obligations to members cont’d
 Also given the state of transparency in due process
particularly, in respect of standard setting and
amendments to existing standards by regulatory
authorities, information dissemination (with the
advent of internet) has been made seamless and
some members are likely to have new regulatory
information emerging from the relevant authorities
before their PAOs.
 Therefore, the dependency of members on their
PAOs for relevant information to assist them
maintain their competencies may not anymore be
contested.

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PAOs’ obligations to members cont’d
 However, given this level of dependency
on PAOs by their members, what major
obligations do PAOs have to their
members?
 The concept of lifelong learning brings a
major obligation on PAOs to ensure that
their members remain competent
through out their career
 See diagram below:
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PAOs’ obligations to members cont’d
The concept of lifelong learning:
LIFELONG
LEARNING
Commences
following
enrolment
into
accountancy
education
programme
through
All
accountancy
education
training
programmes
Up to
Becoming a
qualified
accountant
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and
Throughout
the
professional
accountant’s
career
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PAOs’ obligations to members cont’d
 In its standard, the International Education
Standards (IES-7) issued by the International
Education Standards Board (IESB) titledContinuing Professional Development:
A Programme of Lifelong Learning and
Continuing Development of
Professional Competence, the standard,
para.13 requires IFAC member bodies to
“promote the importance of continuous
improvement in competence and a
commitment to lifelong learning for all
professional accountants”.
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PAOs’ obligations to members cont’d
 The standard prescribes that IFAC
member bodies should:
 Foster a commitment to lifelong learning
among professional accountants;
 Facilitate access to continuing professional
development opportunities and resources
for their members;
 Establish for members benchmark for
developing and maintaining the
professional competence necessary to
protect public interests; and
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PAOS’ obligations to members cont’d
 monitor and enforce the continuing
development and maintenance of
professional competence of professional
accountants.
 However, the standard recognises the
principle that it is the responsibility of
each professional accountant to develop
and maintain professional competence
necessary to provide high quality services
to their clients, employers and other
stakeholders.
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PAOs’ obligations to members cont’d
 Mandatory CPD for all Professional
Accountants
 IES 7 para.18 notes that member bodies
should require all professional accountants to
develop and maintain competence relevant
and appropriate to their work and
professional responsibilities.
 However, the standard stresses that the
responsibility for developing and maintaining
competence rests primarily with each
professional accountant.
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PAOs’ obligations to members cont’d
 Therefore, PAOs, in organising CPD
programmes is in the spirit of ensuring
that members take advantage of the
platform provided by them.
 It may seem unlikely that if professional
accountants were left to provide on their
own, the required level of continuing CPD
it may lack cohesion and also may not
sufficiently identify gaps in competence
and training needs. But see below how
some PAOs manage CPD activities.
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PAOS’ obligations to members cont’d
 However, where PAOs conduct CPD programmes
for their members themselves, they are required
to consider what is relevant and appropriate for
professional accountants.
 The standard requires that the following issues
be considered:
 relevance-given the expected contributions to
competence of professional accountants,
acceptable CPD activities should facilitate the
development of the professional knowledge,
professional skills and professional values, ethics
and attitudes of the professional accountant,
relevant to their current and future work
and professional responsibilities.
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PAOS’ obligations to members cont’d
 Another issue to be considered is
Measurement of CPD activities
 paras. 25, 26 IES-7, require Professional
accountants to measure learning activities or
outcomes to meet the member body’s (such
as ANAN) CPD requirements.
 The standard also notes that learning activity
can be measured in terms of effort or time
spent, or through a valid assessment
method, which measures competence
achieved or developed.
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PAOS’ obligations to members cont’d
 The issue of measurement brings on
another issue of verification of CPD
activities .
 First is the fact that CPD records must be
kept be professional accountants, which
document related CPD activities and can
be produced when required by the PAO.
 This is to enable the CPD attained by the
professional accountant to be verified. It
is recognised that some learning activities
may be measured but not verified
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PAOs’ obligations to members cont’d
Given that CPD is to develop the professional
competence of professional accountant, the
standard identifies three approaches through
which CPD activities could be achieved thus:
 Input-based approaches these require
establishment (presumably, by PAOs) of a set
amount of learning activities that are considered
appropriate to develop and maintain
competence.
 Output-based approaches these are where
the professional accountants are required to
 demonstrate, by way of outcomes, that they
develop and maintain professional competence.
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PAOs’ obligations to members cont’d
 The standard also recognises a third approach,
which is a combination of the two approaches
noted above.
 Combined approaches—these refer to
methods that effectively and efficiently combine
elements of the input and output based
approaches, setting the amount of learning
activities required and measuring the outcomes
achieved.
 Our research shows that most PAOs adopt the
combined approach, which brings in some level
of flexibility and professional judgement. See
ACCA and ICAEW CPD Administration
tables below.
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PAOs’ obligations to members cont’d
 However, a major obligation that rest on
PAOs is to ensure that while assisting
members (whichever approach adopted) to
achieve their CPD activities, they are required
to establish a systematic process to monitor
whether professional accountants meet the
CPD requirement and the system must
provide for appropriate sanctions for failing
to meet the requirement, including failing to
report or failing to develop and maintain
competence.
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PAOs’ obligations to members cont’d
 The systematic process put in place by PAOs
vary and the variants include the following:
(i) PAO directly setting and administering
activities that count toward CPD including
training. This provides the PAO the
opportunity to monitor and enforce
compliance on CPD requirement;
(ii) PAO permits members to attain a specific
number of CPD units or hours and produce
evidence that the PAO can verify;
(iii) PAO in addition to providing CPD activities by
itself, also permits or registers some training
providers including employers as authorised
CPD training providers

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PAOs’ obligations to members cont’d
 PAOs are said to base their decision of
what systematic process to adopt on the
basis of cost efficient and convenient ways
of administering CPD to members before
adopting a CPD process.
 For example, ACCA has four streams
through which members can satisfy their
CPD requirements and these are shown in
the table below.
 Also ICAEW has quite a different system
of administering CPD on its members as
shown below.
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PAOs’ obligations to members cont’d
Unit route
Unit route-part-time or
service retired
ACCA approved
employer route
IFAC body route
The unit route is for members
who plan and organise their own
CPD. If you follow the unit route,
you are required to complete 40
relevant units of CPD each year,
where one unit equals one hour
of development. 21 units must
be verifiable; the other 19 can be
non-verifiable. It is extremely
important to focus on what is
relevant to your role and your
career ambitions. No matter what
your learning activity is, if you
can answer ‘yes' to the three
questions below, you can record
your learning activity as verifiable
CPD:
Was the learning activity relevant
to your career?
Can you explain how you will
apply the learning in the
workplace?
Can you provide evidence that
you undertook the learning
activity?
If you are employed for 770 hours
or less over the course of a CPD
year, then you may be eligible to
follow this route. For example, you
might work up to 17.5 hours per
week, or you might only be active in
the workplace at specific points in
the year. If this applies to you, then
you may complete 19 units of nonverifiable CPD and set your own
level of verifiable CPD. You will need
to ensure that you have completed
an appropriate level of CPD for your
role. The most important thing to
focus on is relevance to your role
and your career.
The following conditions apply to
this route:
If you are not eligible for this route,
you must follow the full unit route.
If you are a practising member, you
may only follow this route if you are
not responsible for audit or other
regulatory work. You also need to
be able to show that you have the
support of a technical expert when
carrying out your duties.
You may not follow this route if you
are involved in the preparation or
presentation of accounts investors
may rely on, or are a Non-Executive
Director of a listed company.
If you work for an organisation
which is an ACCA Approved
if you are also a member of another
professional accountancy body
then ACCA's CPD programme is
sufficiently flexible to allow you to
choose to follow your other
body's CPD programme instead of
ACCA's CPD programme, as long
as:
you are a full member of that
professional accountancy body;
your other member body is a
member of IFAC; and
your other member body's CPD
policy is compliant with IFAC's
International Educational
Standard (IES 7).
If you can answer 'yes' to these
three statements, you are eligible
to follow the IFAC body route,
and, if doing so, can indicate this
when making your annual CPD
declaration to ACCA.
Employer - professional
development, you may achieve
your CPD by participating in
your organisation's employee
development programme and
you are not required to
complete any additional CPD.
You must however, complete
an annual CPD declaration to
ACCA stating that you have
followed this route.
If you have worked for an
ACCA Approved Employer professional development for
all or any part of a CPD year,
you can indicate that you have
taken the employer route
when you make your annual
declaration.
It is your responsibility to
confirm with your employer
that they are an ACCA
Approved Employer professional development and
that you or your team are
covered by the approval. ACCA
maintains a list of all
employers who have gained
approval under the
professional development
stream.
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ACCA CPD ADMIN.
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PAOs’ obligations to members cont’d
What is CPD?
What activities count as
CPD?
Providing Evidence
Complete any required
CPD Activity
Unlike some professional
bodies, we don’t dictate
how much CPD members
must do. There are no set
hours or points to attain.
You simply need to
complete as much
development activity as you
feel is required to remain
competent in your role(s).
You don’t necessarily need
to attend training courses
to maintain CPD
compliance. We recognise
that people learn in
different ways, through
several different channels.
These are the popular ways
members stay up to date:
Read the ICAEW email alert
– it contains updates and
news relevant to your role
Attend a workshop,
conference, seminar or
webinar
Read a book or journal,
such as a faculty
publication
Participate in the ICAEW
community
Arrange an informal
training session with a
colleague
ICAEW randomly select
members for review on an
annual basis. If you are
asked for evidence, you will
need to show how you
have complied.
Your CPD evidence will
need to mirror the steps
described above, and
further information will be
provided in the
request letter:
How you record your
evidence is up to you, but
you will need to
demonstrate the three
steps of reflect, act and
impact. You can record
evidence using ICAEW’s
record form or you can
keep your CPD details in
Word or Excel and upload
them to
www.icaew.com/cpd
On an ongoing basis, and
using your professional
judgement, you should:
Reflect
• reflect on the knowledge
and skills required for your
role(s);
• consider your
responsibilities and the
expectations placed upon
you;
• identify your learning and
development needs; these
should be relevant to
your role(s) and your future
career development; they
may include technical
knowledge, business
awareness, IT skills and
‘soft’ skills such as
negotiation, time
management, team
leadership skills.
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ICAEW CPD ADMIN.
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PAOs’ obligations to members cont’d
What is CPD?
What activities count
as CPD?
Providing Evidence
Complete any required
CPD Activity
Act
when appropriate, take
action (reading, online
research, focused discussion,
courses, etc.) to keep up to
date and remain fully
competent.
Impact
• assess the effectiveness of
these activities (how the
learning has made you
more competent and
effective, what you can do
now which you couldn’t
do before) and consider
whether your learning and
development objectives
have been met.
ICAEW CPD ADMIN.
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PAOs’ obligations to members cont’d
 The table below shows the different
ways other PAOs i.e. ACCA and ICAEW
administer their CPD
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PAOs’ obligations to members cont’d
IES 7
CPD Approach
CPD hours
CPD Programmes
provision
Recommends either:
Input-based;
Output-based; or
Combination of both
ACCA
ICAEW
Output-based but
requiring individual
professional accountant’s
judgement
Output-based but
requiring individual
professional accountant’s
judgement
120 hours only if inputbased approach is adopted
120 hours CPD activities
achieved over three (3)
years
60 hours verifiable
40 hours annually
21 hours verifiable
IES 7 para. 17 states that
member bodies may
directly provide relevant
CPD programmes for
professional accountants
and facilitate access to
programmes offered by
others, encompassing all
learning methods.
Deploys four (4) streams
for accomplishing yearly
CPD requirement but
ACCA does not directly
provide CPD programmes
but encourages acquisition
through approved routes.
Activities must be based
on relevance on current
role and career ambitions
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CPD hours or units not
specified
Individual judgement but
CPD activities must be
relevant to current role(s)
and future career
development.
Encourages acquisition of
CPD hours through several
different channels but
emphasis is on current
roles and future career
development.
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PAOs’ obligations to members cont’d
 In its discussion paper titled: “A global
debate on preparing accountants for finance
leadership” IFAC pointed out the role and
expectations of a Chief Finance Officer
(CFO).
 It notes under the heading: “preparing
professional accountants for finance
leadership” the following five principles
guiding the role and expectation of a CFO:
 be an effective organisational leader and key
member of senior management;
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PAOs’ obligations to members cont’d
 balance the responsibilities of stewardship
with business partnership;
 act as the integrator and navigator for the
organisation;
 be an effective leader of the finance and
accounting function; and
 bring professional quality to the role of
CFO and the organisation.
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PAOs obligations to members cont’d
 The paper further notes four typical roles
accountants in business have been found
and relate to value management which
encompasses:
 creating value- engaged in developing
strategies for sustainable value creation;
 enabling value- supporting the governing
body and senior management in making
decisions and facilitating the
understanding of performance of
organisational functions or units;
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PAOs’ obligations to members cont’d
 preserving value-asset and liability
management, managing risk in relation to
setting and achieving the organisation’s
objectives and implementing and
monitoring effective internal control
systems; and
 reporting value- this, the paper notes is in
respect of ensuring relevant and useful
internal and external business reporting.
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PAOs’ obligations to members cont’d
 The issues raised in the discussion paper
would appear to provide some pointer to
PAOs where they would have to develop
their members competencies (e.g. via
CPD) and also ensure reasonable
knowledge and understanding of the
issues by their qualifying members if they
are to build competent individuals for
leadership in finance and accounting role
in the future for private and public sector
respectively.
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PAOs’ obligation to the public
 Accountancy profession has in the last five or so




decades, witnessed a plethora of professional
indiscretions and other acts of unethical practices
leading to high profile corporate collapses.
The concerns of investors and indeed, the public,
remain that the preparers of financial statements and
the auditors are all professional accountants.
Questions that have become recurring in the minds of
many investors and the public at large are:
Where were the financial auditors (who are all
professional accountants) when the indiscretions and
unethical practices were perpetrated?
Were they aware of the wrong doings of those charged
with the governance of the corporate bodies?
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PAOs’ obligations to the public
 What action did they take to prevent the
incidents of indiscretions?
 What action have the accountancy regulatory
bodies taken to instill ethical values in
members of the PAOs that they regulate?
 How are ethical values and professional
competence of professional accountants
monitored by the PAOs including their
members’ practices and the conduct of the
individual members in practice or in
employment?
 What measures should the PAOs put in place
to enforce ethical values, professional skills
and professional competency?
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PAOs’ obligations to the public cont’d
 A major aspect of a professional accountant’s life
that has changed in the last five decades is that
which prevents him or her from operating
autonomously without shepherd.
 Professional accountants have become globally
regulated in addition to regulations required within
their own jurisdictions
 Globally, all professional accountants are regulated
through IFAC, which comprises 159 members and
associates in 124 countries worldwide with
approximately 2.5 million accountants across public
practice, industry and commerce, public sector and
education and stresses that its objective is to serve
the public interest.
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PAOs’ obligations to the public cont’d
 IFAC stresses that to serve the public
interest, it aims to:
 strengthen the worldwide accountancy
profession; and
 contribute to the development of strong
economies by establishing and promoting:
(i) adherence to high-quality professional
standards;
(ii) furthering the international convergence of
such standards; and
(iii) speaking out on public interest issues
where the profession’s expertise is most
relevant
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PAOs’ obligations to the public cont’d
 While PAOs are directly working also to meet
obligations placed on them for the public
interest as set out in points (i) and (iii) above in
their own jurisdictions, they are obliged
indirectly, to also play major part in fulfilling the
role required to achieve point (ii) but in this
case, ensuring the smooth convergence of those
standards with their local standards.
 It is believed that in fulfilling the three
obligations noted above, PAOs would also be
strengthening the world accountancy profession
and contributing to the development of, and
establishing a strong economies in their
jurisdictions
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PAOs’ obligations to the public cont’d
 But what role should PAOs play in ensuring
adherence to high-quality professional
standards?
 PAOs must ensure that their members
understand and are able to apply the highquality international standards produced
through extensive due process that have
converged with their local standards
 For example in Nigeria:
 (i) do they understand and are able to apply
IFRS/IAS; IFRS for SMEs; IPSAS (Cash
and/or accrual basis) appropriately?
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PAO’s obligations to the public cont’d
 for those members in practice, have they
also complied with the following standards
as they relate to them:
Overall framework of Assurance Engagement
International Standards on Quality Control (ISQC 1)
International Framework for Assurance Engagements
International
Standards on
Auditing
(ISAs)
International
Standards on
Review
Engagements
(ISREs)
International
Standards on
Assurance
Engagements
(ISAEs)
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International
Standards on
related
Services
(ISRSEs)
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PAO’s obligations to the public cont’d
 In drawing their accountancy education programmes
and CPD activities, have PAOs integrated the
provisions of the following IES where appropriate?

IES
Title
1
Entry requirements to a programme of professional accounting
education
2
Content of professional accounting education programme
3
Professional skills and general education
4
Professional values, ethics and attitudes
5
Practical experience requirements
6
Assessment of professional capabilities and competence
7
Continuing professional development: a programme for lifelong
learning and development of professional competence
8
Competence requirements for audit professionals
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PAO’s obligations to the public cont’d
 It is believed that compliance and adherence
to the various high quality standards shown
above as well as the PAO’s territorial laws
and regulatory requirements, the PAO would
have been serving the public interest.
 In addition, PAOs must not be averse to
making public statements where the
profession’s expertise is most relevant as well
as also on issues that it judges will enhance
public awareness on legal and regulatory
matters e.g. the recent publication by ANAN
on “Whistle Blowing”.
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Conclusion
 Contents of this presentation shown on
slides 4 to 68 are the various
obligations of Professional Accountancy
Organisations (PAOs) to their:
 Students
 Members; and
 the Public.
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End
 Thank you for Listening
 Emmanuel Ogbonnaya
 CEO/Director, Technical & Training (PTC)
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