By Obas Esiedesa, Abuja

The Nigerian Institute of Management (Chartered) has expressed its opposition to the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) Amendment Bill recently presented to the House of Representatives Committee on Finance.

A statement by the Institute’s President and Chairman of Council, Major General Abdullahi Muraina (Rtd), on Wednesday, explained that the ICAN Amendment bill “premised on its desire to regulate other professional bodies truly encroaches on statutory mandates of NIM by defining ‘Accountancy Practices’ to include ‘Management Consultancy Services’.

According to him, “the Nigerian Institute of Management Establishment Act No. 14, 2003, enacted as an Act of National Assembly on the 19th of June 2003 established the Institute as a body corporate under that name”.

He stressed that by the Act, the Institute is charged among many other mandates to “determine what standards of knowledge and skill are to be attained by persons seeking to become members of the management profession and raising those standards and skill from time to time as circumstances may permit; secure in accordance with the provisions of the Act the establishment and maintenance of register of members and publication from time to time of list of those members; regulate and control the profession of management in all its aspects and ramifications; and perform through the Council under the Act the functions conferred on it by the Act”.

Major General Muraina (Rtd) reasoned that since the NIM Establishment Act empowers the Institute to “regulate and control the profession of Management in all its aspects and ramification”, it nullifies the inclusion of “Management Consultancy Services” by ICAN in its amendment bill since it is an aspect of the Management Profession.

He therefore held that it was an encroachment on the laws of the Institute.

He pointed at other aspects in the ICAN Bill that tamper with the NIM Act to include “Corporate Service Practitioner, Governance Risk and Compliance Practitioner, and Financial Management Practitioner”.

He emphasized that it became necessary for the Nigerian Institute of Management to issue a “statement on the issue and also send a strong written opposition to some aspects of ICAN Amendment Bill to the National Assembly in order to nip the proposed Bill in the bud before it scales various National Assembly readings”.