South Asian Federation of Accountants (Safa) has decided to launch Corporate Governance Award in the forthcoming Safa conference scheduled to be held on 3rd December, 2004 in Colombo.
The conference is titled "Corporate Governance-Challenges and Implementation Issues". Besides the corporate governance award, another group of Safa has been working for evaluation of annual reports of the corporate sector of the Saarc region as per published criteria to select companies entitled to Safa Best Presented Accounts Award.
President Safa and National Council member of ICMA of Pakistan Badruddin Fakhri stated this during a luncheon meeting with journalists on his return from New Delhi after attending the 20th anniversary of Safa held on 28th August, 2004.
Referring to his speech he delivered on the 20th anniversary of Safa, he pointed out that several Safa projects had been initiated this year, which included preparing cost index of major products of the Saarc region, introduction of accrual accounting in Saarc countries, harmonisation of code of corporate governance and status of research in Safa bodies.
He mentioned that three centres of excellence of Safa were working on a regular basis for improving and harmonising the profession covering areas, like education, examination, continued professional education, training, information technology and auditing standards, quality control and ethics etc.
Besides concentrating on professional matters, Safa also took it as a social obligation to take initiatives for the development of economy of the Saarc region, he added.
He observed that time has come that economic considerations should take precedence over the political considerations, so that living conditions of the people could improve.
He said that the elevation of technocrats in India and Pakistan as prime ministers indicated that there was a realisation that these countries could not develop unless they improve their economy at a faster pace.
He emphasised that the economic conditions of the people could not be changed unless economic co-operation amongst Saarc countries was enhanced to a level whereby the benefits of the proximity could be realised on the lines of Asean and European Economic Union and similar other regional bodies.
He opined that the accountancy practices in the Safa region in particular were evolving with the alignments in the new trade order in such a scenario that the role of harmonisation of standards, system and practices needed no more emphasis.
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