Accountants engage Parley on legislation
The Malawi Accountants Board (MAB) has urged Parliament to assist in expediting the review of the Public Accountants and Auditors Act to enable the board to become more effective and a fully-fledged regulator.
MAB chairperson Sangwani Hara made the appeal on Wednesday during the board’s engagement with the Parliamentary Committee of Commissions, Statutory Corporations and State-Owned Enterprises in Blantyre.
He said that the review of the Act will help the board to grow and become a fully-fledged regulator.
Said Hara: “MAB is still stunted. Since 2013, there have been many developments, including changing accounting standards, that we need more powers and legal basis for us to do certain things we would like to do.
“With the ever-changing needs of users and consumers of financial information, we also have to keep alert and adapt to the changing environment. We have to keep pace with the new and evolving accounting standards on the international scene, comply with the changes and reforms by Malawi Government reporting framework including alignment with Malawi 2063.”
He added that the board will also be lobbying for the review of the Immigration Act to ensure that expatriates have satisfied the requirements of the board.
“We have a lot of trained and qualified accountants in Malawi but at the same time, other institutions and organisations are able to bring in financial specialists into the country to work here. There are no background checks to those people and they are not locally registered and we can’t discipline them as a regulator if they are not registered.”
Speaking during the engagement, member of the committee, Thyolo Central member of Parliament Ben Phiri said the amendment is necessary.
He said: “It looks like you have the law but there are elements not supporting you enough hence the need for support of the committee and Parliament.”
MAB, with a membership of 2 000, is a regulatory body for the accounting and auditing professions in the country, established under the Public Accountants and Auditors Act of 1981 and amended and replaced by the current Act—the Public Accountants and Auditors Act of 2013.
