The country's auditing watchdog Financial Reporting Council (FRC) has widened the definition of public-interest entity (PIE) to bring more corporate bodies under its scanners.
Now the FRC will be able to seek financial statements of more private companies that had been out of their reach.
The FRC earlier used to scrutinise financial statements of the companies established under the Bank Companies Act of 1991, Financial Institution Act of 1993, Insurance Act of 2010, Microcredit Regulatory Act of 2006 and all listed firms.
But under the latest definition, the companies with their annual turnover reaching Tk 50 million (5.0 crore) will also be treated as PIEs and the FRC will be able to bring them under its scanners.
If the annual turnover does not reach the Tk 50 million mark, the PIEs will be identified on the basis of their total assets and liabilities.
In that case the total assets should reach Tk 30 million, comprising both owners' equity and liabilities-the owners' equity portion will reach Tk 20 million and the liabilities Tk 10 million.
A gazette notification has been issued to this end by the FRC, established under in 2015.
The FRC will be able to seek financial statements from these new categories of companies, apart from those mentioned earlier, for scrutiny and subsequent actions.
Registered firms are required to submit financial statements to the Registrar of Joint Stock Companies and Firms (RJSC) in accordance with the licensing conditions.
But the RJSC office under the Ministry of Commerce is not mandated to analyse the papers of the non-listed companies.
A senior FRC official said after the gazette notification the private firms in the above criteria will have to share their statements with the FRC.
He said the sharing of financial information with the reporting council would help promote the businesses' transparency and integrity.
Earlier, it sought financial statements from many private firms but they did not comply because of the limitation in definition of PIEs.
It is alleged that companies prepare a number of financial statements in connivance with auditing firms and use those for different unholy purposes.
Pharmaceutical companies reportedly bribe the doctors who often needlessly prescribe medicines.
Such payouts from the companies cannot be identified without verifying the healthy cash-flow, sources said.
Diagnostic centres pay doctors for referring patients to them. "We need their financial statements for detection of it," the FRC official said.
Apart from this, irregularities abound while preparing financial statements including appointment of auditors, sources said.
Companies choose such audit firms so that they can dictate them.
jasimharoon@yahoo.com