Stressing on the need for a equitable and civilised world order, Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu on Monday said that countries should be more open to sharing information as well as inking extradition treaties swiftly to not just curb financial frauds but also to check the practice where fraudsters scam general public of their hard earned money and escape to other countries.
Giving the inaugural address at the 70th foundation day celebrations of chartered accountants’ (CA) body Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) in the national capital, Naidu said that CAs are the conscience keepers of the economy while emphasising on following the highest ethical standards. He stressed that CAs should help avoid recurrence of frauds.
“It takes very long to sign extradition treaties. Every civilisation must come forward for this. I know I am making a very strong statement. I call on the world community so that every civilisation must come forward for this (inking extradition treaty). We must all work to create such a situation that every civilisation is a happy civilisation,” he said.
He added that there have been instances in the past, where fraudsters eloped to other countries fleeing with the hard earned money of the general public. Naidu strongly supported the drive to curb financial frauds, while raising questions on some countries who allow such people to take asylum in their jurisdictions. Naidu said accounting and financial services sector has been identified as one of the growth drivers and the stakeholders here must adhere to the principles of “reform, perform and transform” to ensure that the sector grows exponentially as well as serves the general public well. “Ill gotten money which is collected by fleecing innocent people and is being parked in other countries is hindering world peace and this needs to be checked,” he said.
Ministry of corporate affairs (MCA) secretary Injeti Srinivas too stressed on the need for having strict professional ethics. “For a country to become a financial powerhouse, it needs to have very strong foundation, skills and professional ethics. Good governance is important for the country and economy to be sustainable,” he said.
Srinivas also pointed out that in today’s world for a CAs to perform their duty, they should have independence. “For CAs to perform their duty, they should be independent. This is and important issue and it should be debated,” he added.
The secretary suggested that there can be a debate on creating a mechanism like the Comptroller and Auditor General’s (CAG) office, which audits the government expenditure. There can be a similar panel for the CA industry. “It can be debated whether such a mechanism would be feasible,” Srinivas said.
ICAI president Prafulla P Chhajed said, “Starting with a few hundred members in 1949, ICAI today has about 3 lakh members. With its 5 regional councils and 164 branches spread across the nation and 34 overseas chapters across the world, our members are strongly contributing to both national and global economy, and this indeed gives us a reason to celebrate.”
