Chief Justice Sakala Challenges Accountants20 April 2009

 Zambia: Chief Justice Sakala Challenges Accountants

20 April 2009

CHIEF Justice, Ernest Sakala has challenged accountants in Zambia to localise international accounting standards and help the Government overcome the hardships emanating from the current global financial crisis.

The chief justice also stressed the need for accountants, through the Zambia Institute of Chartered Accountants (ZICA), to play a major role in minimising irregularities in the annual Auditor General's report.

Justice Sakala made the remarks on Saturday night at the ZICA annual ball held at Zambezi Sun Hotel in Livingstone.

On the global financial crisis, the chief justice said ZICA should localise the international accounting standards to suit the country's economic needs because accountants had a pivotal role to play in the national economic development.

He said one of the recommendations of the G20 summit recently held in the United Kingdom was to adopt new accounting and financial standards to deal with the economic meltdown.

Justice Sakala said the annual ball enabled accountants to discuss issues affecting the nation and ways of suggesting to the Government on development.

The chief justice challenged the accountants to explain their profession's failure to identify toxic assets that eventually endangered the global economy.

He said accountants should offer solutions as they criticised the Government because failure to do so would make the Government defensive of its policies.

The chief justice also said the accounting profession must be worried at the fact that the numbers of accountants appearing in courts of law for theft was rising.

He called on ZICA to ensure that accountants tarnishing the image of the profession were removed.

On the Auditor General's report, the chief justice said ZICA must be worried about the contents of the report, which for years now had been showing misappropriation of funds and do something about it to rectify the irregularities.

Earlier, ZICA president Chintu Mulendema said the organisation had grown in membership and maintained cordial relations with the Government.

He was happy that the organisation had experienced rare growth with investment reaching K5 billion and a K1.5 billion surplus for the ending year, making it a world-class professional body.

Mr Mulendema said a number of developments had taken place including the introduction of a new disciplinary code to ensure the conduct of accountants was not compromised.

He said ZICA would also establish a network with the media and sign memoranda of understanding with other accounting bodies.

Meanwhile, Mr Mulendema retained his presidency after coming out unopposed.Announcing the results of the elections during the gala dinner, ZICA secretary Hapenga Kabeta said Mr Mulendema was unopposed and declared him duly elected for the next three years.

Others who were elected to fill the vacant positions were Jonathan Muke, as council member, representing the public practice and Erick Masumbu, for commerce and industry.

Mr Kabeta, however, advised the elected council members not to relax because there was a lot of work to be done.