Nnamdi Okwuadigbo, President, Institute of Chartered Accountant of Nigeria (ICAN), has said the Institute is relentless in its commitment to supporting government at all levels to find a lasting solution to high incidence of corruption in the country.
He stated this on Thursday while speaking at the 24th annual conference of the Association of Accounting Technicians West Africa (AATWA) at the ICAN Centre, Amuwo Odofin, Lagos.
He said that out of the myriads of challenges facing global economies, corruption had continued to rear its ugly head as the most threatening hindrance to growth and development, especially in the developing economies of African.
“We are creating the necessary awareness among all stakeholders on the destructive effects of corruption on policies and programme of any country. The institute is deepening the capacities of its members in area of Forensic Accounting and Investigative Auditing.
“The ICAN Accountability Index (ICAN-AI) is another initiative of the institute at ensuring accountability and transparency in public financial management in the country. As ICAN ambassadors, you must constantly and conscientiously uphold the ethics of our profession as you join us to bring corruption to a tolerable minimum in our society,” he added.
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Okwuadigbo told the old and new members that the global community expected them to bring to the fore the profession’s culture of transparency, integrity, candour and hard work.
He said the growth of the association over the years had been most encouraging, that there were 24, 616 AATWA members under the umbrella of ICAN, stressing that the association and its members had continued to play pivotal roles in the economies of member countries within the West African sub-continent.
The ICAN president, while speaking on the theme of the conference, ‘Building a greater Nigeria Through Innovation, Technology and Entrepreneurship’, said it was clear that no economy, profession or individual could have a competitive edge in the market without deliberate focus on creative thinking and leveraging technology to improve service delivery.
He said that the global economy had become innovation driven and that Nigeria had keyed into the global wave of Science Technology and Innovation (STI) through various initiatives, including the Executive Order 5 signed by President Muhammadu Buhari.