The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) has commended President Tinubu for the bold economic policy reforms he has embarked upon in barely 5 weeks of his assumption of office on May 29, 2023.
This is contained in a press release signed by the body’s President Mr. Innocent Okwuosa which was made available to the media over the weekend.
Some of the policies include the removal of fuel subsidy and exchange rate unification which aligns with the Institute’s earlier stated position as well as the President’s stance on clean energy transition.
“We also identify with his support for clean energy transition that factors in the vast gas resources of the country which in our view is energy justice and will reduce debt exposure of the country.
“We commend him for these quick and bold actions while drawing attention to consideration of the plight of those within the low income bracket.
“However, another quick and bold action which the President must take as he considers his ministers is the appointment of more chartered accountants in his cabinet. The socio-political challenges facing Nigeria today calls for the intervention of chartered accountants in public governance.
According to Okwuosa, “Chartered accountants should man key sensitive positions requiring proper accountability as there cannot be effective public governance without accountants”.
Citing the examples of Zenith Bank, Federal Inland Revenue Service and the Lagos State Government, he argued that that the more chartered accountants are involved in organisations the better their performance.
“The study we conducted provides evidence which shows that there is positive correlation between having more chartered accountants within a work force and better organisational performance. In other words, organisations that employ more chartered accountants perform better than those employing less chartered accountants in terms of service delivery and financial performance.
“This has been proven empirically drawing experiences from Zenith Bank, Federal Inland Revenue Services (FIRS) and Lagos State government. These three organisations span private sector, a government agency and state government respectively”
“We believe that President Tinubu’s administration will experience same performance success if more chartered accountants are engaged by his administration.
“Today we are looking for a Minister of Finance that will clean up government monetary policy. What we need is a chartered accountant economist i.e. an economist that is a chartered accountant and not just an economist alone.
“We want to state that within the ICAN chartered accountants, we have economists, engineers, doctors, pharmacists, architects, political scientists, pastors, imams, you name it. So inherent in ICAN chartered accountants are other disciplines, while accounting and finance predominates.
“When accountability permeates every cabinet member and his or her ministry, corruption will be minimised, better governance elevated and Nigerians will instantly begin to feel the dividend of democracy.
“Incidentally the President is an accountant and understands what we are saying here”, he concluded.