26 Jul 2016

 Accountants possess skills that can help build the economy, Botswana Institute of Chartered Accountants (BICA) president, Mr Rudi Binedell has said.

He said they wanted BICA members to assist in building Botswana economy through innovation.

As a result, Mr Binedell said BICA would their biennial conference from August 11-12 in Gaborone under the theme: Leading, Building and Innovating in Turbulent Times.

He said the aim of the conference was to strengthen the ability of accountants to observe standards and ethical code of conduct in the accounting profession. 

He said by so doing, the country would be able to attract foreign direct investment.

He noted that Botswana competed with a range of countries worldwide and as such competency in the field of accounting was paramount.

BICA chief executive officer, Ms Verily Molatedi said BICA was set up by an act of Parliament in 2010.

The act served to regulate accountants by ensuring that everyone working in the profession must be registered with the institution.

She said the act identified that Botswana needed citizen trained accountants and it set up BICA that partnered with Chartered Institute of England and Wales.

Ms Molatedi noted that their data base indicated that they had 1 119 registered Chartered Accountants out of which only 448 were Batswana.

On one hand, she said they were anticipating an increase in registered citizen accountants as the year progressed, adding that at the moment they were still allowing import of services of foreign accountants. Ends