BSEC chairman Professor Shibli Rubayat-Ul-Islam said inclusion of professional cost and management accountants in relevant sectors would be better for the stock market development of Bangladesh.
"Professional cost and management accountants would be able to give a great hand for ensuring the transparency of financial reports. Cost auditing is a very important process for ensuring compliance with the ethics of financial reporting," the BSEC chairman said while addressing a webinar on "CMA's Role Ensuring Compliance in Financial Reporting" on Friday.
Institute of Cost and Management Accountants of Bangladesh (ICMAB) organized the webinar.
The chairman of Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (BSEC) graced the programme as the Chief Guest.
The BSEC chairman mentioned that, to judge an organization properly, high quality financial statements with adequate disclosures are needed to protect shareholders as well as public interest.
Mr. Zia Ul Mustafa Awan, President, South Asian Federation of Accountants (SAFA) attended the webinar as Special Guest and Prof. Lakshman R Watawala, President, Institute of Certified Management Accountants of Sri Lanka (CMA Sri Lanka) attended the webinar as paper presenter & Guest of Honour.
Mr. Md. Mamunur Rashid, DMD, Index Group of Companies presented the keynote paper. He briefly described about the CMA profession and its services like Investment analysis, its appraisal and evaluation; valuation of shares and properties, share premium calculations on IPOs, diagnosis of industrial sickness and corrective measures, cost audit of manufacturing industry to validate COGS statement, inventory control incorporating mathematical models, cost reduction by using modern management tools like operation research, value engineering, etc.
On behalf of the institute, he highlighted some recommendations which include compliance of government order for implementation of cost audit [Sec 220 Companies Act]; Certification of Cost Of Goods Sold Statement by CMAs for all listed companies, inclusion of CMAs in the Independent Directors panel of the listed companies etc.
CMA Balwinder Singh, President of the Cost Accountants of India (ICAI), Mr. Imtiaz Alam, Council Member ICMAB, Mr. Mohammad Abdul, Chairman, Professional Service Committee, ICMAB and Mr. Ruhul Ameen, Editor, The Cost and Management Accountants (Journal) and Mr. Abu Sayed Md. Shaykhul Islam, Past President and present Council Member of ICMAB spoke on the occasion.
ICMAB President Mr. Md. Jasim Uddin Akond presided over the webinar. Chairman of Seminar and Conference Committee of ICMAB Mr. AKM Delwer Hussain gave the welcome address. Mr. Abu Bakar Siddique FCMA offered vote of thanks and Mr. Md. Munirul Islam, Secretary, ICMAB acted as Moderator.
Mr. Md. Jasim Uddin Akond urged for implementation of the Government Order regarding Cost Audit, fixing a time-frame demanding means to guide Corporate Management towards increasing productivity in both industrial and service sector to attain desired goals.
The speakers highlighted the importance of cost audit in both public and private sectors and mentioned that cost audit includes both financial and non-financial issues and provide recommendations as to how to improve sectional efficiency and overall performance of the organization, increase productivity and profitability and making best quality of goods at lowest cost. They said cost audit is much more than the financial audit to minimize wastage, increase profitability and declare due dividend to the shareholders and boost up capital market. They mentioned that the integrated reporting under cost audit ensures the financial and spending accuracy on one hand and guides the corporate management to achieve the organizational goals on the other. They added that the public finance management of the government can be improved a lot by doing cost audits for fixing prices of the goods of basic needs of the people like medicine, fertilizer, food, health equipment etc. As such, cost audit would help protecting consumers' rights. They also mentioned that the government would be benefited, if it takes the professional services of Cost and Management Accountants in budgeting and budgetary control activities.
National Board of Revenue (NBR) would be able take right steps in giving tariff protection to the really deserving local manufacturers taking decisions from the research output conducted by Cost Auditors.
The government would also be benefited in combating corruption and money laundering by doing cost audits of public spending. In conclusion, they said that cost audit is not a burden for the business houses and government organizations; rather it is an investment to assess the ability of an organization to continue as a going concern, improve efficiency and performance, fight corruption and protect public interest as well; but the corporate leaders are not aware of the uses and benefits of Cost Audit.