Cooking books will cost you past prizes, team tells firms
What you need to know:
- This year’s FiRe awards gala will be held on October 27.
- The award aims at strengthening financial markets and increasing investors’ confidence.
Past winners of the Financial Reporting (FiRe) Awards risk losing their prizes if found to have falsified their accounts.
The 2016 FiRe Awards committee yesterday said recent reports of financial reports’ manipulation have contributed to dwindling investor confidence on the reliability of published accounts.
The warning comes hot on the heels of the buckling of a number of institutions, especially banks despite reporting healthy bott.
Companies and individuals identified as culprits will be struck off registers of respective professional bodies while those responsible will be held criminally liable for forgeries and misreporting, the committee warned.
“If you won a FiRe award and we later realised your audit firm concealed crucial information in terms of financial reporting, definitely we shall revoke the award that also includes the cash awards. We have a responsibility to check on audit quality to ensure all auditors abide by set standards,” said the Institute of Certified Public Accounts of Kenya (Icpak) boss, Dr Patrick Ngumi.
The FiRe Awards committee members include the Public Sector Accounting Standards Board representative Patrick Abachi, Capital Markets Authority chief executive Paul Muthaura, Nairobi Bourse CEO Geoffrey Odundo and Mr Ngumi.
The FiRe Awards launched yesterday are an annual financial reporting fete aimed at raising financial reporting standards and increasing investors’ confidence in contesting firms and improving service delivery in public institutions.
This year’s awards gala will be held on October 27.
Mr Muthaura said all financial statements released for consumption to shareholders and would-be investors as well as financial statements from State corporations and other entities must be reliable to help in decision-making.
“We are working hard to restore public confidence on reports they consume which have adversely affected integrity of reporting standards for both public and private bodies,” he added.
Mr Odundo said all Nairobi Securities Exchange-listed companies must abide by the financial reporting standards, adding that anyone found defaulting on the standards will be shamed in public to safeguard investors.
Dr Ngumi said investigations on numerous auditing firms said to have helped company directors to conceal details of their financial misdeeds at listed firms and banks were ongoing.
NSE-listed retail chain Uchumi and the collapsed Imperial, Chase and Dubai banks are all said to have been keeping dodgy accounts.
Mr Muthaura said the CMA was also reviewing its procedures and penalties to be imposed on defaulting firms to enhance deterrence.
The committee said it had also reviewed entry conditions in line with the new public corporations code of conduct (Mwongozo) Public Financial Management Act and the Company Act, as well as regulations gazetted by CMA and the Treasury on governance and finance reporting procedures as well as newly introduced international financial reporting standards.
