President urges all to be accountable to society, nation for overall dev

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President Iajuddin Ahmed Friday called upon all to be accountable to their own self, to society and the nation as a whole for achieving overall development of the country, reports UNB.
"A person of accountability is the most valuable resource for an organisation as well as the nation," he said, inaugurating a two-day international conference at a city hotel in the afternoon.
Institute of Cost and Management Accountants of Bangladesh (ICMAB) organised the International Conference-2007 titled 'Transparency, Accountability and Accountant'.
Finance Adviser Mirza Azizul Islam also addressed the function while Bangladesh Bank Governor Salehuddin Ahmed presented the keynote paper.
ICMAB president Mamtaz Uddin Ahmed gave the address of welcome while ICMAB secretary Mohammed Salim gave the vote of thanks.
President Iajuddin said that at this juncture of the 21st century, economic development of a country heavily rests on its intellectual capability as well as efficient human resources.
"Bangladesh, being a developing country, needs huge efficient and capable human resources in order to achieve rapid and sustainable development."
In the age of globalisation, he said accountants play a vital role in financial discipline and transparency while the cost and management accountants (CMAs) have huge opportunities to establish financial discipline, transparency and accountability in the national economy through their honest endeavours, which is the essence of time.
"If we look at the global business practices, it seems that the responsible corporate culture has been emerging as a vital factor for the economy," he said.
The President expressed the hope that the CMAs would ensure corporate stewardship responsibilities both at home and abroad by using their talents and professional knowledge.
He also hoped that the conference would provide more professional insights to add to the current stock of ethical practices regarding how this profession can function efficiently and effectively to ensure transparency and accountability in the economy.
He urged the CMA professionals to spread their invaluable services in all sectors for balanced economic growth of the country.
"It's my belief that CMAs with their intellectual ability, knowledge and commitment can ensure transparency, financial discipline and accountability in both the government, private, voluntary and multinational organisations, which in turn, will make the economy competitive and sustainable," said the President.
Addressing the function, Finance Adviser Mirza Azizul Islam said transparency and accountability issues have been brought to the forefront in countries across the world, as the taxpayers globally have become critical about foreign aid.
"They consider the aid is being used for greasing the corrupt people," he said, adding that it has caused an aid fatigue.
The Adviser said the present government is entirely focussed in ensuring transparency and accountability, which is rational for the nation's existence.
The focus is essential for two reasons - to attract foreign direct investment and advocacy role played by global NGOs like Transparency Interna-tional, he said. "It's not possible to attract FDI if a country is blacklisted as a corrupt country."
The Finance Adviser mentioned the government's efforts in ensuring transparency and accountability-strengthening oversight institutions like Bangladesh Bank, ACC, SEC and telecom and energy regulatory commissions, actions against corruption and access to information for the people.
In his keynote, Bangladesh Bank Governor Salehuddin Ahmed said, "If the internally generated management advisory information is made more transparent and the accountability can be reinforced on that transparent information, our society will be free from the stigma of the most-corrupt one and our dream of living in a good governed environment will be materialised."