West African attendees tune in to hear experts share their vision of the future 

Over 1,000 attendees from 10 countries across West Africa recently tuned into an online ACCA Africa event to hear about the important role that professional accountants are playing to support economies with the challenges posed by COVID-19.

For the session, ACCA gathered together expert panellists including: 

• Taiwo Oyedele FCCA, PwC Tax Leader, West Africa
• Laoye Jaiyeola, CEO of Nigeria Economic Summit Group
• Kwabena Situ FCCA, Business Process Solutions at Deloitte Ghana
• Abraham Kwabena Anang PhD, Director of Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research (NMIMR) – University of Ghana

The aim of the event was to highlight how the accountancy profession is supporting the economies of Nigeria, Ghana and West Africa, and also ACCA key partners including public practice firms, multinational corporates, government, regulators, auditor generals, national banks and national bodies. 

At the session, Jamie Lyon, head of business management at ACCA gave an overview of his recent COVID-19 global survey ‘The Road to Recovery’.  The report details the many key issues that need to be addressed by policymakers and governments to review economic rescue packages and enable a return to sustainable growth.

The report offers a “roadmap to recovery”, where ACCA recommends that organisations follow the “three As” – Act and respond sustainably to the immediate crisis in the short term; Analyse the different information sources to start to build the path to recovery in the medium term and Anticipate how strategies need to evolve over the longer term.

Tom Isibor, head of ACCA Nigeria, chaired the event and says: ‘The purpose of the profession at this time cannot be under-estimated, as it is helping to build and sustain economies during the turbulence the pandemic brings. This was a key outcome of the session we held, with panellists and attendees agreeing that managing COVID-19 is the new normal for many of us.’

Speaking on the role of accountants in advocating for the digitization of business processes, panellist Taiwo Oyedele says: ‘The role of professional accountants is to guide their organisations. They must be agile in properly identifying their need to invest in the right technology at the right time. Professional accountants must find a way to help their organisations to preserve their competitive advantage.’

The power of collaboration between ACCA and its strategic partners underpinned the success of the online event with key representatives from ICAN, ANAN and CITN as well as other organizations all participating as key contributors to the panel questions.

Insightful questions to the panellists came from VIP guests including Mr Alex Adeyemi, Director Revenue and Investment from the Accountant General’s Office; Dame Olajumoke Simplice, President Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria; Professor Muhammad Akaro Mainoma, President – Association of National Accountants of Nigeria; Mrs Onome Joy Adewuyi, President, Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) – represented by Dr Innocent Okwuosa; Mr Dasuki Arabi, Director General – Bureau of public service reform; Mrs Adaeze Uzor-Kalu FCCA, Head External Relations – Financial market dealers quotation (FMDQ) and Mrs Victoria Ajayi FCCA – Deputy CFO, TVC.