A rebuttal to the article titled \\\'Place of auditors and CAs in Finance Bill 2014\\\'

Finance Bill 2014 placed before the august Parliament by the honourable Finance Minister, Abul Maal Abdul Muhith, has logically made certain proposals emphasizing the need for putting a transparent auditing and accounting system in place for appropriate assessment of business taxes, particularly of those in the nature of sole proprietorship or partnership. We believe that the proposals made are appropriate and timely and, once implemented, will help check the leakage of revenue of the government while bringing about discipline in the practice of accounting and reporting in the businesses concerned. We, the Institute of Cost and Management Accountants of Bangladesh, a partner to the development of the country, appreciate this move and convey our heartfelt thanks to the government for the initiatives.
In this connection, an article titled 'Place of Auditors and CAs in Finance Bill 2014', published in your esteemed daily on June 21, 2014, has drawn our attention. The author who happens to be a Chartered Accountant has, in his article, tried to degrade the Cost and Management Accounting (CMA) profession in various parts of his write-up. With an ill motive, he categorically related CMA profession with that of "Muktars" as against "Pleaders", and "General Practitioners" as against "Specialist Surgeons" to denote the superiority of the profession he belongs to. We strongly condemn use of such words against a profession which has over the years earned the trust and confidence of the society through their valued contribution and firmly believe that this has been done out of professional jealousy. We consider this to be unbecoming of a professional like him. It may be noted that all local laws as well as international bodies give equal recognition and status to both CAs and CMAs
We also found his statement, "Nowhere in the world are the audit and certification of financial statements done by anybody but the CAs", to be completely untrue. Many countries around the world including Canada, Australia, the UK etc., allow accounting professionals other than those designated as CAs to do audit and certification of financial statements and that we believe are not unknown to the author.
The author has questioned the right of the CMAs to "conduct audit" under "CMA Order 1977". We would like to reaffirm that conducting audit is within the very scope of Cost and Management Accountants Ordinance 1977 and other laws of the country.
He has also irrelevantly referred to "Companies Act, Insurance and Bank Companies Act" to prove that the proposed provision of the Finance Bill authorizing CMAs along with CAs to certify the financial statements as "incongruent" to these laws. The fact is that the aforesaid acts regulate the companies, not the sole proprietorship or partnership firms to which the budget proposals relate. The proposals have no contradiction with any law of the country.
We noted with concern that some vested quarters have started a propaganda with the purpose of maligning and tarnishing the image of the CMA profession and we strongly protest such an initiative by any vested interest group.

AKM Nazrul Islam FCMA
Executive Director,
The Institute of Cost and Management Accountants of Bangladesh