BICA seeks more powers against errant accountants
Pauline Dikuelo | Wednesday July 26, 2017 12:04
The BICA Act of 2010 states that BICA can fine an unregistered accountant who provides service for a fee or salary for a fine of P500,000 or 10 years imprisonment.
However, this Act does have gaps as it does not give BICA the Authority to involve the police while the procedure for prosecution needs to be improved.
According to BICA’s director of training and professional development, Nametso Laletsang, they are finalising a process that would enable BICA to take legal action against unregistered accountants with the help of the relevant authorities.
“We are aware that there are some accountants who are practising but have not registered with us, hence the reason why we have embarked on a process to address the situation and have been getting advice from the relevant authorities on the ways to close those people down,” she said.
Currently, BICA has embarked on a process of vetting unregistered accountants from different government departments and organisations.
“We have written letters to different organisations requesting a list of accountants that are in their employ. Some have responded while some are still in the process of doing so,” she said.
In addition, she said BICA is currently working with other tuition providers to get their syllabus to be relevant to their qualifications.
Further, BICA also decried insufficient number of citizen accountants in the country. Out of 701 members, about 528 of them are citizens.
Since inception of the chartered accountants qualification in 2011, only nine people have graduated; with six in October last year, two in December last year and one in May this year.
Recently, BICA launched their 2017-2020 strategy, whose vision is to support Botswana’s development through a dynamic and ethical accountancy profession. The 2017-2020 strategy’s key strategic focus areas are to increase revenue generation, increase registration of accountants in the country as well as enhance BICA qualification.
It intends to also strengthen partnership management, leverage on technology, improve the monitoring of non-audit firms, improve management skills through coaching and mentoring as well as improve talent management.