The President of the Institute of Chartered Accountants Ghana (ICAG), Professor Kwame B. Omane-Antwi, has bemoaned the activities of some pastors who have turned their churches into business entities.
He said such pastors targeted the vulnerable in society such as women by selling to them all sorts of so-called spiritual materials at exorbitant prices without paying taxes towards the country’s development.
“I believe it is high time sanity was brought to bear in the said practices by establishing a Charity Commission that would ensure that churches audit their accounts annually in order to be accountable to their church members,” he opined.
Speaking at the 26th graduation and admission ceremony of ICAG in Accra at the weekend, Professor Omane-Antwi, who is also an Elder of the Church of Pentecost, said the Charity Commission should be given the mandate to ensure that human rights abuses were curtailed in churches “by seeing to it that culprits of such abuses are duly prosecuted”.
Ceremony
The ceremony witnessed the graduation of 394 students who successfully completed the Chartered Accounting professional programme last year as well as the admission of 364 qualified professional accountants as members of ICAG.
Thirty-one students who had completed the Accounting Technician Scheme of West Africa programme also graduated.
Corruption
Professor Omane-Antwi described corruption as a ‘thief of opportunities’ and called on accountants to take concrete efforts to stem it in their practice. He observed that “in some cases, a number of accountants have put their jobs at risk in their bid to sanitise institutional processes and procedures’’.
“As an institution, we are not exempt from making our views known within our context in our bid to stamp out the canker. The advocacy role of the institute is still evolving and calls for us to live above reproach,” the ICAG president indicated.
He also challenged female accountants to aspire to leadership positions by “rising above inhibiting circumstances and climb up the corporate ladder”.
Advice
Professor Omane-Antwi further advised the graduates and newly admitted members of the institution to continue to build on their capacities to become competitive.
“Graduation and admission is just a stepping stone. There are more laurels to be won, more mountains to climb and more rivers to cross,’’ he intimated.
In a speech read on her behalf, the Minister of Education, Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, also advised ICAG members to make professionalism their hallmark.
“You are required to be an expert in the field of accountancy, exhibit excellence in practical and literary skills in relation to your profession and have high standards of ethics,” she said.
