ACCA, FITC seal pact to share capacity, deliver value to private sector
Consistent with their respective commitment to adding value and enhancing human capital, the Association of Chartered and Certified Accounts (ACCA) and Financial Institutions Training Centre (FITC) recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) aimed at sharing capacity and delivering value to the private sector, especially the banking sector.
The coming together is also aimed to enable the two organisations contribute to capacity building in Nigeria, just as it will afford them the opportunity to help businesses in the country, leveraging their professional ethics.
“There is a commonality in the two organizations as financial institutions; the import of the MoU is not only in the interest of both organisations, but also in their desire to improve ethics in governance,” Toyin Ademola, country head, ACCA Nigeria, said at a press conference jointly addressed by the two organisations after signing the MoU in Lagos.
Helen Brand, chief executive, ACCA Global, said the partnership was also aimed to deliver value to their members, explaining that both organisations could share information on their global experiences.
As a global body for professional accountants, ACCA offers business-relevant, first-choice qualifications to people of application, ability and ambition around the world who seek a rewarding career in accountancy, finance and management.
The association, which works through a network of 100 offices and centres and more than 7,110 approved centres, supports its 188,000 members and 480,000 students in 178 countries, helping them to develop successful careers in accounting and business with the skills required by employers.
Its latest innovations to the top level of its qualification are new strategic professional level exams, which will replace the existing professional level exams in September 2018 and a new Ethics and Professional Skills module, which will be introduced in October 2017.
Established in 1981 as a non-profit organisation limited by guarantee, based on the Company’s Act of 1968, FITC came as a response to the recommendations of the Pius Okigbo Committee set-up by the Federal Government of Nigeria to review the Nigerian financial system.
It is owned by the Banker’s Committee, which comprises the Central Bank of Nigeria, the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation, all licensed banks and discount houses in Nigeria. Its special focus is on training, consult, and research and partners with other organisations to develop capacity for them to compete effectively.
Olatunji Ajiboye, the Centre’s head of training and associate director, revealed that they were also co-operating with the government, adding, “We have started training our people from director level and our thinking is that if we get it right at that level, it would cascade down to the junior workers.”
On government’s ongoing fight against corruption, Ajiboye noted that it was better to educate the people on the issue of corruption than preventing it. “We have to fight corruption from the root cause; find out what the problem is, and work on it,” he advised.
Brand disclosed that in order to ensure that their professional ethics were sustained, before any student of accountancy becomes an ACCA member, he/she had to pass through the ethics of the profession, which needs education, training and role modelling.