The securities regulator has revised the panel of auditors for listed and non-listed companies which submitted IPO proposals dropping Ahmed Mashuque & Co., a chartered accountants firm from the list.
The Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (BSEC) has revised the list of eligible audit firms following the non-compliance of the CA firm.
A BSEC official said Ahmed Mashuque & Co. has been dropped from the list of eligible audit firms as the firm has turned into sole proprietorship from previous partnership form.
"In a letter, the firm told us that one of its partners has left the company. That's why the firm's name has been dropped from the list," the BSEC official said.
To conduct the auditing job of the listed and non-listed companies which submitted IPO (initial public offering) proposal, an audit firm must have minimum two partners along with fulfilling some other conditions.
The previous list of audit firms included 38 CA firms and was published on February 2.
The number of audit firms now has come down to 37 after the exit of Ahmed Mashuque & Co. from the list.
The securities regulator formed a panel of 40 auditors in 2016 to audit financial statements of the listed companies and others which submitted IPO proposals to ensure more transparency. The panel is revised from time to time.
As per the latest revised list of audit firms, the eligible CA firms are: A Hoque & Company, A Qasem, A Wahab, ACNABIN, Ahmed Zaker, ARTISAN, Ashraf Uddin, Aziz Halim Khair Choudhury, FAMES & R, G Kibria, Hoda Vasi Chowdhury, Howlader Yunus, Hussain Farhad, Islam Aftab Kamrul, Islam Quazi Shafique, KM Alam, KM Hasan, Kazi Zahir Khan, Khan Wahab Shafique Rahman, MJ Abedin, MM Rahman, MABS & J Partners, Mahefi Huq, Malek Siddiqui Wali, Masih Muhith Haque, Nurul Faruk Hasan, Octokhan, Pinaki & Company, Rahman Mostafa Alam, Rahman Rahman Huq, SF Ahmed, SK Barua, Shafiq Basak, Shiraz Khan Basak, Syful Shamsul Alam, Toha Khan Zaman and Zoha Zaman Kabir Rashid.
Previously, the securities regulator published only the names of audit firms eligible to conduct the audit of the listed companies and non-listed companies which submitted IPO proposals.
In October, 2019 the securities regulator took the decision of including the names of the auditors in the list of CA firms to ensure more accountability in audit.
The decision came in the backdrop of some mismatches and wrongdoings following changes in the partners of the audit firms.
In some cases, partners are changed in the audit firms but the securities regulator is not informed of those changes.
That's why the securities regulator now publishes the list of eligible auditors and their respective audit firms.
No practising chartered accountants are eligible for auditing job unless their names are included in the BSEC's auditors' panel.
The audit firms lose eligibility for auditing jobs if any of their partners leaves the firm.
The partners of the audit firms can be changed anytime but the newcomers must be included in the BSEC panel for the sake of accountability, according to officials of the securities regulator.
