Of coconuts and accountants

Sri Lanka is a country of coconuts and accountants, the British High Commissioner learnt last week.

“I heard only this morning from a very senior business figure that a reputable accountancy body in the UK had described Sri Lanka to him as the country of coconuts and accountants. What is the difference between a coconut and an accountant? Well, one has a very hard, even rough exterior but when you crack it open is full of surprising goodness…and the other is a coconut,” Dominick Chilcott told the ACCA Sri Lanka branch’s National Conference last week.

Chilcott, who was close to becoming an ACCA member himself before deciding to join the British Foreign Office, said Sri Lanka is well known in British accountancy circles for the many thousands of qualified accountants and even larger numbers of students of accountancy that this country produces.