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Opinions of Sunday, 29 September 2019
Columnist: Isaac Ato Mensah

THE ICAG: How to not think

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Augustine Addo, Director of Member Services of Institute of Chartered Accountants Ghana, granted a
very shocking interview to Citi 97.3FM on Eye Witness News on the evening of 6 September.

Questioned about the four audit firms the ICAG has fined for poor audits in the banking scandal matter,
Addo said that the audit firms that were fined and the individuals who work for them are very competent,
and therefore people should “have faith in them”.

He stated: “They’ve handled about 100 files in a year and if these small infractions are detected we
should withdraw their license – no.”

He justified the dodgy financial fines imposed by ICAG on its corporate members without the individuals
being touched thus: “They’ve worked for about 25 years and no error has been detected.”
Now frankly, you would expect such reasoning from a gnat and not from an official statement from a
national professional regulatory body under the Ministry of Education. What the hell is going on in this
country?

Here is how my mentor contextualized Augustine Addo’s statement:

“So a 35 year old man is involved in his 1st armed robbery during which a 23 year old male security
guard…(newly married with a 3 month old baby) is killed. Ehrmmmm….the armed robber has lived for 35
YEARS WITHOUT ANY PROBLEMS (365 DAYS × 35). So why should he go to jail for JUST ONE
OFFENCE FOR ONE HOUR OF HIS LIFE??”

What does the law say?

In other places and other times such blatant disregard for the law and human sensibilities has led to
people reaching for pitchforks and knives.

Is that what we want from this terrible scandal that has led to the loss of people’s life savings? We hope
not.

What is so dangerous about Augustine Addo’s words are that the audit reports passed the test.

Should there be any complaints about the audit reports of any year taken at random, who knows what
shall be found.

Meanwhile, the Bank of Ghana’s Banking Supervision Department has formally admitted that they failed
to do their job over many years.

The ICAG obviously has no internal regulation.

Clearly a “harmonious mediocrity” was the ethos and as such continues to prevail.

In the interim, the Director of Member Services is hailed as an “Accounting Jesus” (an accolade given by
his students) who is teaching students and assisting members hopefully with honorable conduct and
virtuous thoughts.

The ICAG is an agency under the Ministry of Education; they sponsor bills through Parliament; they seek
always to influence bills sent to Parliament; they have always insisted that no matter where one got his
formal accountancy training, you MUST be regulated by them.
Now if this is how the internal regulation mechanism of ICAG works, then we have our work cut out for us.

Now for the “T word”…….

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Ato Mensah; Quora, Isaac Ato Mensah. WhatsApp (+233) 020 022 0353.

Writers and Shakespeares Ghana Limited exist to be a moral and intellectual guide to the best practice of
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