On 17th – 18th, December, 2013.

The Retreat on Branch Leadership and Best
Practices
in
Professional
Accountancy
Organisations (PAOs) held at Nigerian College
of Accountancy, Kwall near Jos, Plateau State
on 17th and 18th December, 2013. This is a
follow-up to the leadership Retreat held at
TINAPA, Calabar, Cross River State on 28th
and 29th October 2013.

The Association, having attained enviable heights
within its thirty-four years of existence as a
Professional Accountancy Organisation (PAO)
climaxed by its admission into the membership
of International Federation of Accountants (IFAC)
and other regional Accountancy bodies is set in
this retreat to examine branch operations to date
and fashion out strategies for the future and also
to reposition the Association to be ranked among
the first ten frontline Professional Accountancy
Organizations (PAOs) in the World within the next
ten years.

In this retreat, it is expected that the braches
being an extension of the Association should
be able to contribute to the overall objectives
of the Association in line with our
International status.
The Retreat recognized the Role of the Association in
National Development to include among others:
 i.
Capacity Building / Production of Human
Capital for the Economy
 ii. Promotion of the Science of Accountancy by
engaging in accounting education, research and
development with the programmes of the Nigerian
College of Accountancy and CEFAR to contribute to
curriculum development in tertiary institutions and
promotion of research through donation of
research centres, accounting laboratory initiative,
computers/
books
and
accreditation
of
accountancy programmes in our institutions.
iii. Offer advisory role to Government and
Business through improved services by members
in government and practice by contributing to
national financial issues advocacy on war against
corruption and fraudulent practices, to promote
transparency and accountability in governance.
In Carrying out these roles to the nation, the
Association identified the following challenges:
 i.
Infusing World Class Accounting Education as
prescribed by IFAC into the curriculum of our
tertiary institutions.
 ii. The pace of ICT development in Accounting
Practice, the attitude of members towards
ICT developments and accountancy practice
leave much to be desired as many are not
disposed towards capacity development and
value added programmes in this area.
On the obligation of the Association to its
members, immediate community and the
public, the Retreat understood the need:
 i. To
develop
competent
professional
Accountants in line with International
Accounting Education Standard Board (IAESB),
through pre-qualification and enrolment of
potential students into the College to ensure
professional knowledge, skills, values, ethics
and attitudes of members.



The need to promote public confidence in the
profession by establishing benchmarks for
developing and maintaining the professional
competence and integrity of members.
iv. Maintaining and improving conduct and
competence of members’ services to the
public, by subjecting it to continuous
supervision towards ensuring that all
members operate to the highest standards
and discipline to ensure public confidence.
The Retreat also enumerated the expectations
from the branches on PAO regulations as
follows:
 Branches are to cater for all members in their
branch and assist the Association’s operations
in fulfilling IFAC long term objective of
regulating and monitoring members, especially
those in practice to ensure high quality
services.
 Branches should organize workshops, seminars
and conferences for its members to update
them on tax matters, IFAC competence test and
to serve as channels of communication of the
Association’s programme to members.

The retreat reiterates the need for the
branches to abide with the rules, guidelines
and
responsibilities of the Branches as
entrenched in the harmonized Bye law for
state branches and districts of the
Association.
Equally emphasized, is the need for the
branches to ensure that their annual financial
statements are prepared in
line with
Accounting Policies of the Association and
such reports reach the Head Quarters on or
before February of each year.
The retreat stressed the need for branch elections
to hold as at when due for smooth transition as
exemplified by the leadership of the Association.
 On Good Governance, the Retreat stressed the
need for good governance in the management of
PAOs and identified the objective to include:
 Protection of stakeholders interest
 File disclosure of an informed decision making
 Commitment to values and ethical conduct.
 Transparency of transaction
 Compliances
with statutory and legal
requirement.
To be able to achieve the above objectives, the
following principles are relevant:
 Establishment of strategic objectives
 Effective independent audit.
 Dispute resolution mechanism
 Code of conduct adherence
 Effective oversight function
 Nurtured proactive and committed team.
The challenges to good corporate governance
were noted to include:
 Poor integration of entities and development
of ICT.
 Increased level of risks
 Over contentment of information
 Resurgence of high level malpractices
 Inadequate management capacity.
On the issue of management of Branches of
Professional Accountancy Organisations, the
Retreat agreed that;
 Maintaining sustainability of branches require
concerted efforts of the branch executives who
must be upright, dependable, honest and have
moral rectitude.
 Branches need to collaborate rather than run
autocratic system since inclusive leadership is
the pivot for achieving the objectives of the
Association. Branches need to promote team
work, effective communication, identity and
utilize the strengths of each team player
The Retreat noted that when branches work
together as a group, the challenges of branch
administration can be reduced since ‘keeping
together is progress and working together
is success’. They can embark on programmes
and activities that impact on the immediate
community in which they operate.
 On ANAN’s strategic repositioning for the future,
the retreat outlined the following critical factors
that will most likely shape the future and
progress of the Association. This includes:



The growing uncertainty that surrounds the
global financial and economic governance
framework.
Rate of ICT growth, Science, Technology and
Innovation and the rate of obsolescence of many
traditional accounting and financial reporting
principles.
The effect of increased population growth has led
to the overcrowded classrooms and shortage of
facilities in the educational sector has continued
to reduce the quality of graduate enrolment into
the professional training programmes.


The gradual shifts of economic power from
the western world to the East will impact on
the future of control of professional
accounting practices.
Globalization of professional accounting
practice will put pressure on professional
accounting bodies to strengthen their
membership
guidelines
as
well
as
management structure to meet international
standards.
Realizing that the above critical factors as probable
issue that will drive the future of the association,
the following 10-point strategic repositioning is
proposed:
 Corporate governance leadership behavior based
on Culture, Values and Ethics
 Drawing
up of strategic plan to measure
expected outcome.
 Members’ capacity, building/Linkages/Networks
 Pursuance of NCA mandate, good governance
and proper staffing
 Technical capacity of practitioners on SME/SMPs
and private sector penetration.





Research and publications/Advocacy
Faculty Development in Accounting domains
Image management/Corporate identify
Brach governance, role and empowerment.
Virtual training infrastructure for mature
student’s programme/campus networking.

From the proceedings of this Retreat, branch
leadership are critical cells of the Association
and must take steps to promote the image of
the Association by encouraging members to
participate in all activities and continue to
engage best practices by benchmarking its
operations with other similar branches in line
with the overall objectives of the Association.

The leadership of the Association on
its part need to continue to show
purposeful leadership, transparency
and inclusive governance if the
dream of attaining the height of
being the first best ten Professional
Accountancy Organisations is to be
realized.