Your ed­i­to­r­i­al of 25 Oc­to­ber re­lat­ing to the col­lapse of CLI­CO and HCU rais­es some im­por­tant points, but is based on a mis­un­der­stand­ing of the role of AC­CA (As­so­ci­a­tion of Char­tered Cer­ti­fied Ac­coun­tants). AC­CA is a pro­fes­sion­al ac­coun­tan­cy body, whose aim is to of­fer busi­ness-rel­e­vant, first-choice qual­i­fi­ca­tions to peo­ple who seek a re­ward­ing ca­reer in ac­coun­tan­cy, fi­nance and man­age­ment.

Our Caribbean of­fice, whilst based in Trinidad, sup­ports our 22,000 mem­bers and stu­dents through­out 18 Eng­lish-speak­ing coun­tries in the re­gion. We work in part­ner­ship with em­ploy­ers and tu­ition providers to de­vel­op the pro­fes­sion and en­sure our stu­dents and mem­bers meet the needs of busi­ness­es world­wide.

Im­por­tant­ly, through our pub­lic in­ter­est re­mit, we pro­mote the ap­pro­pri­ate reg­u­la­tion of ac­count­ing and con­duct rel­e­vant re­search to en­sure ac­coun­tan­cy con­tin­ues to grow in rep­u­ta­tion and in­flu­ence. We have high stan­dards of con­duct ex­pect­ed of our mem­bers, who are em­ployed in all sec­tors and who are re­quired to act eth­i­cal­ly and in the pub­lic in­ter­est at all times.

All mem­bers, af­fil­i­ates and reg­is­tered stu­dents are bound by a code of ethics and con­duct. Any AC­CA reg­is­tered stu­dent, mem­ber or af­fil­i­ate who fails to com­ply with the code of ethics and con­duct will be li­able to dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to the laws of Trinidad and To­ba­go, all au­di­tors in prac­tice lo­cal­ly must hold a prac­tis­ing cer­tifi­cate is­sued by ICATT (the In­sti­tute of Char­tered Ac­coun­tants of Trinidad and To­ba­go). ICATT has the statu­to­ry man­date to de­vel­op, pro­mote and reg­u­late the ac­count­ing pro­fes­sion in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Bren­da Lee Tang

Head of AC­CA Caribbean