By Franklin Alli with Agency Report

The Federal Government has signed into law the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) Bill 2011. The Minister of Trade and Investment, Dr. Olusegun Aganga, disclosed this weekend, during a one-day workshop titled Attracting Investments into Nigeria, organised by the Federal Ministry of Trade and Investment.

Dr. Aganga said the implementation of this law will put the country on the path of adopting the best organised approach to regulation of financial reporting as it is currently practised in the United Kingdom, Australia, Malaysia and the United States of America.

He said that the present administration was determined to restructure and reform the economy of Nigeria, create necessary macroeconomic and regulatory environment as a way of attracting Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and encourage ideas that can lead to the realisation of the full potentials of the nation’s resources.

He said President Goodluck Jonathan has already started taking steps to ensure that these objectives are realised.

Dr. Aganga recalled that the Federal Executive Council on 28th July, 2010 unveiled the Road Map for Nigeria’s adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) effective January 1, 2012 in order to enhance Nigria’s dedication to reliable financial information and audit quality assurance.

The legislation is meant not only to create the enabling environment for the implementation of the IFRS and to guarantee credible financial reporting regime in both public and private sector entities in Nigeria but also wealth-creation and economic transformation,

Other benefits that will accrue from the application of the provisions of the Financial Reporting Council Act include:

*Increase in Foreign Direct Investment and assurance of easier access to external capital; platform for economic integration, harmonisation and internationalisation of legal reforms that are capable of re-assuring the markets and the public at large that corporate reporting and governance frameworks are sufficiently robust.

Enhancement of local and foreign investors’ confidence in the quality assurance systems of financial reporting in public and private sector entities in Nigeria;more meaningful and decision-enhancing information can now be arrived at from financial statements issued in Nigeria because Accounting, Actuarial, Valuation and Auditing Standards, used in the preparation of these statements, shall be issued and regulated by this Financial Reporting Council.

The FRC is a unified independent regulatory body for Accounting, Auditing, Actuarial, Valuation and Corporate Governance.  As such, compliance monitoring in these areas will hence be addressed from the platform of professionalism and legislation.

Job creation; as graduates of accounting and related fields, from Nigeria’ tertiary institutions, shall become internationally acceptable and employable.