Pundits task professional accountants on digitalization, upskilling

• Only 4% of global population of accountants are from Africa.
• Only 123k accounting professionals are members of PAOs
• People are not industry ready

By Chioma Obinagwam

There is a dire need for professional accountants to deliberately embrace digitization, digitalization and upskill.

This is the outcome of the State of the Accountancy Profession in Africa Report for the year 2022 presented to Accountancy professionals on Friday by Partner Fiscal Policy and Africa Tax Leader at Pricewaterhousecoopers (PwC), Taiwo Oyedele and organized by Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA).

Presenting the report, Oyedele disclosed to Confiance News that there were only 60 Accounting Organizations in Africa and only 123k accounting professionals are members of Professional Accountancy Organizations (PAOs) in the continent.

He frowned at the numbers and stated that there is a significant skill gap, which needed to be closed.

Read also: Lagos govt, ACCA, PwC, others dissect State of Accountancy Profession in Africa Report for 2022 (In photos)

“Africa is about 15 percent of the world’s population, only 4 percent of the global population of accountants are from Africa. We need to get to work. We need to collaborate and build more capacities,” he pointed.

Reacting to the report Oyedele said that most tax professionals lack the technological skills needed to navigate their work.

“We found out that we don’t have the skills that we need in areas like technology. For instance CHATGPT. The way this AI is going, there’s need to upskill so that the AI improves your work rather than replacing you,” he advised.

Sad reality
A poll with a scale of 1-5 (where 1 was the least score and 5 the highest) was conducted to ascertain the degree of upskilling and technical astuteness among accountancy professionals, the result of the poll had an average score of 1.5.

The result of the poll was generated from the responses of the four panelists at the event— Mr. Oyedele of PwC; Permanent Secretary/Accountant General of Lagos State, Abiodun Muritala; Director, Public Sector Accounting Standard at Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria (FRC), Dr. Iheanyi Anyahara; Prof. Onafowokan Oluyombo of the Department of Accounting, School of Management and Social Sciences, Pan-Atlantic University as well as that of the First Vice President of Association of National Accountants of Nigeria (ANAN), Dr. James Neminebor.

A breakdown of the poll showed Dr. Muritala scoring the professionals 2; Prof. Oluyombo and Dr. Anyahara corroborated with 2. Mr. Oyedele, however, gave them a 2.5 score whereas Dr. Neminebor scored them less than 1.

Mr. Oyedele’s expressed concerns over is unemployability of accountants and non-accountants. He argued that people are not industry ready.

“We are 2.5 out of 5. We have made some progress but we still need to grow. Whether it is in agriculture, management, etc, you have a lot of people who are employed but they are not employable. People are not industry ready. They haven’t taken the initiative to develop themselves,” Oyedele lamented.

Reacting to the polls, Anyahara frowned at the modus operandi of the public sector with regards to training.

Anyahara said, “I think it is really bad. From our regulatory oversight: we oversight both public and private sector. There’s a huge deficit; it is more pronounced in the public sector.

“What we see at work when we review financial statements, we ask ourselves,’are we really worth the salt'”?

He pointed that the selection process for trainings, mostly at the public sector, is discriminatory— the wrong people are selected.

Read also: ACCA tasks public sector finance professionals on sustainability, climate action

“They see learning as compensation. You see that you’re talking to the wrong people. That is why we are talking about learning and development. When those who are supposed to go for training are not there. The public sector, they are so fixated as if it was in the beginning,” he decried.

According to Dr. Neminebor, who scored accountancy professionals less than 1, he argued that most accountancy firm still use outdated systems in their day to day activities.

“We still have file cabinet since, even up to now. Whatever you’re saying here, until you bring government into it Nigeria is still less than 1 percent,” he lamented.

Emergence of game changers
For accountancy professionals to fully unleash their potentials for the benefit of all, things have be done differently. The status quo needs to change— this underscores the importance of the various game changers in that space.

A major game changer, Mr. Oyedele argued, is digitization. He noted that it is so because it helps professionals work smartly.

Corroborating, Muritala, who agrees that there is a huge gap in technological skills among accounting professionals pointed that technology and upskilling are major game changers.

On his part, Prof. Oluyombo is of the view that breaking stereotypes among accounting professionals is a major game changer.

“The conversativeness of accountants need to be worked on. There is need to shift from conventional practices,” he explained.

For Anyahara, the major game changer is expanding skills to include emerging technology.

He said,”As issues are emerging skills are being developed to accommodate it.

However, Dr. Neminebor believes that integration is the major game changer.

“What we need most is integration. ACCA is now gathering us. Until we come together to drive a new focus, we do have challenge. In Nigeria, if we do, we will control Africa and we will control the world,” he said.

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