ICAN seeks review of banking reforms

 By Babajide Komolafe

ENUGU—Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria, ICAN, has called for a  review of on-going reforms in the financial sector of  the country.

ICAN President, Major General Sebastian Owuama (rtd.),  made this call  in his keynote address at the Fifth Eastern Districts Conference held  in  Enugu.

Owuama, who is also the current President of the Association of Accountancy Bodies in West Africa, ABWA, observed that after the implementation of the first phase of the reform exercise, backed up with the timely financial bailout by the government to cushion the effect of global financial crisis in 2009 on Nigeria’s economy, it was imperative to check the score cards and see if the reforms had impacted on the economy as expected.

He pointed out that before the completion of the second phase of the reform, it was important to see if the vision of the consolidation had been realised so far.

His words: “Has the reforms had any impact on the various sectors of the economy? How many small and medium scale enterprises have obtained facilities from the banks to boost their businesses? Can our banks compete favourably with their counterparts in other parts of Africa and the rest of the world? Has the new banking system attracted more depositors? Have the banks adopted the best practices to attract foreign direct investment into our economy? These questions and more are begging for answers”.

He declared that Chartered Accountants are major stakeholders in the Nigerian economy and should therefore stand as watchdogs and beam their search lights to gray areas with a view to making recommendations to the government.