The Chief Executive Officer of the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria (FRC), Dr Rabiu Olowo, said the Accounting Development Tool (ADT) project would help align the country with the global baseline for accounting practices.
Olowo said this when the Netherlands Consul-General in Lagos, Michel Deelen, paid him a courtesy visit to discuss the ADT in Nigeria project in partnership with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
According to the FRC boss, “This allows us to align with the global baseline for accounting practices and ADT means a lot to Nigeria. “So, this allows us to say thank you and one of the important reasons you are visiting this morning is to check how well that is going; this means that you are not just giving in your financial resources but also checking to see how well this is meeting with the expected output,” he told the visitor.
“There is no better avenue to make this kind of investment other than strengthening regulatory authorities like us. Our vision is to enhance regulatory assurance, to embed transparency, accountability and ensure that the users of financial statements can rely on them,” he added.
Speaking further, Olowo explained that the current economic hardship encourages companies to do wrong things when it comes to financial reporting, hence the need for improved regulatory oversight.
“We are all aware of what is going on in Nigeria today, economic challenges or hardship if you like; research has shown that this period stimulates and encourages companies to do the wrong thing especially when it comes to financial reporting.
“For us as regulators, we are very alert and awake to our responsibilities and your investment in ADT will only further strengthen our capacity to do our job very well. So, we want you to leave here with the assurance that we are committed and not just taking on the project but to see the outcome as delivered,” he explained.
The ADT is a comprehensive toolkit designed to evaluate the legal, institutional and human resource requirements necessary to enhance the accounting and corporate reporting infrastructure of a country.
It enables countries to compare their capacity against international standards and best practices in accounting regulation. Commending the FRC, Deelen said the regulatory body deserved support.
“The Nigerian context sometimes makes companies creative in their bookkeeping and we all know that is not good or beneficial to anybody also not to shareholders and also not to the public at large.
“So, it is crucially important that you have to do this to the best of your abilities and where we can assist you we will. Interestingly, many people will probably think but you have accounting firms who do this. In the Netherlands, we believe a lot in the accounting firms, but after the financial crisis we realised we can’t rely on accounting firms anymore because they are part of the system,” he said.
