A female graduate of the University of Education, Winneba (UEW), Celestine Esi Adzayi, has been crowned the overall best candidate at the 37th Institute of Chartered Accountants, Ghana (ICAG) Graduation Ceremony.

Celestine also emerged as Best First Attempt and Best Female Candidate of the Level 3 CA professional examination.

Prior to her joining the institute on scholarship, 25-year old Celestine graduated from the University of Education, Winneba with First Class Honours in Bachelor of Business Administration (Accounting) in 2020.

In an interview with Joy Business, the learned young lady said she was inspired by her lecturer, Samuel Gameli Gadzo, currently the Head of the Department of Applied Finance and Policy Management, School of Business at the University.

Celestine admonished accounting and auditing professionals to adhere to industry practice to protect the image of the profession.

"For you to be recognised as a professional and certified accountant, you need to write the exams to be able to be admitted by the institute. So I urged all practitioners out there to abide by the profession's code of ethics." she said.

Meanwhile, Elliot Akplaga and Frank Owusu emerged overall best candidates in Level 2 and Level 1 respectively.

The second 2021 Graduation and Admission ceremony of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, Ghana (ICAG) and the 37^th since its inception, was held at the University of Professional Studies, Accra.

The ceremony was graced by the Minister of Education, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum as Guest of Honour together with Past President of ICAG and National Security Minister, Albert Kan Dapaah.

In his keynote address, the Education Minister charged the newly inducted members to make impact in every sector of the economy. 

On his part, President of ICAG, Professor Williams Atuilik hinted of stricter regulatory measures following the coming into effect of the institute's Act 2020 (ACt 1058) which positions ICAG as the autonomous body to regulate accounting and auditing practices in the country.

“Regulation will be strengthened and we will be stricter because in the past we couldn’t take a lot of actions as they were not supported by the law but now we will streamline accounting practice and ensure that people do what is right.” said Prof. Atuilik.

The 2nd 2021 Graduation and Admission Ceremony formally admitted new members into the fold of the institute's existing membership as well as awarded certificates to graduands who successfully completed the institute's qualifying exams in May 2021 and Accounting Technician Scheme West Africa (ATSWA) in March 2021.

In all, 439 qualified accountants were issued certificates and 563 new members were inducted into the institute, having satisfied specific qualification criteria including 19 ATSWA graduands.