Sri Lankan accountants who were always looking for standards and compliance are now involved in ‘Integrated Reporting’ which reflects value creation. This method of accounting should not be confined to the private sector only but should be made mandatory to all public sector agencies. This suggestion was made by Prof. Lakshman R. Watawala, Chairman, Certified [...]

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Accountants must follow good practices including good governance and integrity

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Sri Lankan accountants who were always looking for standards and compliance are now involved in ‘Integrated Reporting’ which reflects value creation.

This method of accounting should not be confined to the private sector only but should be made mandatory to all public sector agencies.

This suggestion was made by Prof. Lakshman R. Watawala, Chairman, Certified Management Accountants of Sri Lanka (CMA), during his opening remarks at the Inauguration of the National Management Accounting Conference – 2017 held in Colombo this week.

The CMA’s 12th annual conference was held on the theme, ‘Digital Transformation – A New Strategic Imperative’ while the inauguration also saw the presentation of the ‘Excellence in Integrated Reporting’ Awards.

Prof. Watawala said, “Integrated Reporting will really show the value creation that you have done for the organisation, to the country and I think this is a very valuable contribution that we can make for Sri Lanka.”

He said that this should not be practised only by the private sector, but is really valuable for the public sector. But he pointed out that only three public sector organisations have participated among 40 entries in the competition.
If the public sector participates in this competition the people in the country would see whether they are creating value and how much money they are spending and the value they are creating for the country.

The conference, he said, is focusing on digital government, economy, banking, and creating value through digitalisation and to widen the scope of new generation of accountants where they should understand the changing paradigms of technology.

He said that only 25,000 out of those 150,000 qualified in GCE A Level gain university entrance and if the government gives more placements this gap could be bridged. He pointed out that Bangladesh earlier had 36 public universities, but today it has 96 private universities and India too has advanced in this regard. If Sri Lanka could spend another Rs. 750 million and create a college system another large number could obtain university education, he said.

Sri Lanka had the best civil service and countries like Singapore and Malaysia employed Sri Lankan civil servants in the 1960s but today Sri Lanka is in a pathetic situation, Prof. Watawala noted, stressing that this country should have an independent administrative service and hoped that these matters would be dealt with by the proposed new constitution.
Among the three keynote speakers, Ravindran Devagunam, CEO, International Strategic Corporation Unit of the Prime Minister’s Department of Malaysia, elaborated as to how Malaysia is tackling the corruption issue and said that good governance could not be achieved without integrity. He said that if there is no integrity there could be catastrophic failure.
He said that if the accountants do not follow good practices and if they do not foresee issues based on good governance and integrity, companies could fail. If there is no immediate failure, he pointed out that there could be long term degradation of society and the loss of competitiveness in the global market.

He said Malaysia is a multi-cultural country and believed in the strength in diversity and in order to survive, if they do not execute, they would get executed.

The other keynote speakers were: Prof Ho Yew Kee, Associate Provost, Skills Future and Staff Development, Singapore Institute of Technology and Richard Howitt, CEO, International Integrated Reporting Council.

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