Accountants frustrated by over-regulation - ACCA Chief

KUALA LUMPUR, (Bernama) -- The duties of accountants are being stifled by increasing bureaucracy and regulatory mechanisms put in place to prevent corporate financial wrongdoings.

Association of Charter Certified Accountants (ACCA) president Dennis Yeates said governments and regulators have become overly cautious since the collapse of Enron Corporation, an American energy company that collapsed due to financial irregularities in late 2001 in one of the biggest corporate scandals in the world.

"The single most important commodity the accountancy profession has is its reputation and the reputation of the profession was very much tarnished by that scandal.

"The requirements now are so incredibly onerous that arguably they are stifling entrepreneurship. "Accountants are swamped by regulations and it is a source of frustration," Yeates said in an interview here last week.

Accountants' time, he added, was wasted in navigating a labyrinth of bureaucracy and regulations which would also increase business costs for their clients.

Yeates was here to attend the three-day ACCA World Council meeting, held for the first time outside the United Kingdom in the body's 102-year history.

The ACCA, the largest global accounting body which educates and regulates accountants, has 110,000 members in 170 countries and about 240,000 students worldwide.

At least 30 per cent of its members are in the Asia Pacific region while Malaysia has nearly 10,000 affiliated members and some 20,000 ACCA students.

Yeates also said Malaysia would require about 65,000 qualified accountants by 2020, three times more than the existing number.

He was confident the target could be reached as the country has a vibrant accountancy community.