Five thousand accounting personnel in state-owned enterprises and agencies in the public sector are undergoing training in the best accounting practices.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants Ghana (ICAG) says the move is critical to improving the financial reporting decisions of practising accountants.

The objective is to improve the agencies to make impactful decisions.

President of ICAG, Prof Williams Abayaawien Atuilik, spoke at a media engagement as part of a week-long activity to celebrate its annual conference.

Officials revealed nationwide training of public sector accountants will continue till the end of the year.

“Five thousand accounting personnel in the public sector-MDAs, MMDAs, constitutional bodies, autonomous institutions, statutory bodies and indeed all public entities- so that they are able to help their various reporting entities, issue the relevant high-quality financial reports that can help to improve service delivery,” President of ICAG, Professor Williams Abayaawien Atuilik, said.

Members of the Institute of Chartered Accountants Ghana, are in Kumasi for its annual conference celebrations.

The 2021 Accountants Conference, under the theme “Business continuity and sustainable development, the role of technology”, is scheduled for two days.

CEO of ICAG, Kwesi Agyemang, says they hope that it will bring a lot of transformation in the financial reporting landscape.

He also adds that, “The ICSA certification is to strengthen public sector accounting reporting. So, we are strengthening the brains of public sector accountants in discharging their duties.

Book keeping, recording transactions and reporting results of transactions. This is more of creating transparency and making reporting more meaningful to stakeholders.”

He emphasized that financial reporting is critical to help stakeholders take decisions and so, “we want to ensure decision making is facilitated.”

Mr. Agyemang adds that the passing of the new Accountancy ACT by parliament will strengthen the regulatory arm of the institute.

“The pandemic has hit hard and technology is also threatening the existence of accountancy profession and we need to move with time.

We are meeting to look at business sustainability and how technology is impacting on the operation of accountancy profession in the country.”

The institute will meanwhile hold its annual general meeting on Friday.