GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

As com­pa­nies and fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions strive to be more trans­par­ent, some­times they ac­tu­al­ly ob­scure the truth be­hind all analy­sis and pro­jec­tions, so said Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Robert Le Hunte yes­ter­day.

“The pres­sure to have more ex­haus­tive fi­nan­cial state­ments is a di­rect re­sult of some of the scan­dals wit­nessed over the years, where com­pa­nies that re­ceived a clean bill of health with re­gards to their fi­nances went bel­ly-up in a short space of time,” Le Hunte not­ed.

He was speak­ing at the launch of the 50th an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions and 2019 an­nu­al in­ter­na­tion­al fi­nance and ac­count­ing con­fer­ence of the In­sti­tute of Char­tered Ac­count­ing Con­fer­ence (ICATT) held at the Hilton Ho­tel yes­ter­day.

The min­is­ter said it was no se­cret that this coun­try is plagued by a high in­ci­dence of white col­lar crime and cor­rup­tion.

“Most of­ten, these sit­u­a­tions un­fold be­tween two par­ties with a fa­cil­i­ta­tor. And so I ask you, to what ex­tent do you fa­cil­i­tate white col­lar crime and cor­rup­tion?

“Cer­tain ac­tiv­i­ties may not even be crim­i­nal in na­ture. Take tax avoid­ance, for ex­am­ple, ver­sus tax-eva­sion. But at the end of the day, these ac­tiv­i­ties are still un­eth­i­cal and not in the best in­ter­est of the coun­try and its peo­ple,” Le Hunte added.

The min­is­ter said it is im­por­tant to de­vel­op “true pro­fes­sion­als” which he de­scribed as the re­al “crux of the mat­ter.”

“So­ci­ety places a lot of trust in that term of be­ing a pro­fes­sion­al. We place our trust and some­times our lives in their trust. A true pro­fes­sion­al must up­hold the stan­dards of its field,” Le Hunte added.

In ques­tion­ing how in­sti­tu­tions, peo­ple and economies can be pro­tect­ed from un­scrupu­lous ac­tiv­i­ties Le Hunte said the an­swer lies in de­vel­op­ing true pro­fes­sion­als.

“Be­sides be­ing tech­ni­cal­ly pro­fi­cient, a true pro­fes­sion­al must up­hold the stan­dards and ethics of their par­tic­u­lar field,” Le Hunte added.

ICATT’s pres­i­dent Sta­cy-Ann Gold­ing who al­so spoke said as an in­sti­tu­tion it was forg­ing ahead to es­tab­lish a qual­i­ty frame­work in­clud­ing au­dit mon­i­tor­ing and re­la­tion­ships with its ex­ter­nal stake­hold­ers.

“We in­tend to up­date ICATT’s leg­is­la­tion, de­vel­op our tech­ni­cal and com­pli­ance ser­vices to mem­bers and en­sure mem­bers ful­ly har­ness the ben­e­fits of be­ing part­ners,” she ex­plained.

Gold­ing said at the macro lev­el, the in­sti­tute looks to sup­port pub­lic sec­tor ini­tia­tives to adopt In­ter­na­tion­al Pub­lic Sec­tor Ac­count­ing Stan­dards(IP­SAS) and strength­en in­ter­nal and ex­ter­nal au­dit ca­pa­bil­i­ty.

“In the years ahead, stay­ing abreast of com­pli­ance changes, the im­pact on tech­nol­o­gy on the ex­e­cu­tion of tra­di­tion­al ac­coun­tan­cy tasks, au­toma­tion and the chang­ing ex­pec­ta­tions of ac­coun­tants in the work­place are mat­ters that will oc­cu­py the pro­fes­sion,” Gold­ing added.