Africa-Press – Liberia. The Liberia Institute of Certified Public Accountants (LICPA), in line with its rules and regulations, has elected its new corps of officers to run its affairs for the next three years.
The incumbent president, Mr. Victor Tanwone Sr. and vice president Papin Daniels Jr., got re-elected on white ballots, while Mohammed B. Korleh defeated his rival to become the Institution’s new Council Member during its Annual General Meeting (AGM) held over the weekend in Monrovia.
The AGM brought together members from across various accountant firms in Liberia and its statutory members from the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning (MFDP) and the Central Bank of Liberia (CBL), among others.
The Liberian Institute of Certified Public Accountants (LICPA) was established by an act of Legislature in June 2011 to regulate the accounting profession in Liberia.
The LICPA is empowered to set standards, license accounting and assurance practitioners, build capacity and do all things appertaining to regulating the accounting and assurance professions aimed at building a strong and vibrant public accounting sector in the country.
Addressing reporters right after his re-election as president, Mr. Tanwone, on behalf of the elected officials thanked his colleagues for the confidence imposed in them to serve for another three years.
“I am pleased to extend thanks and appreciation to the members of the LICPA for the confidence re-imposed in us by electing us on white ballots and that speaks volume,” he said.
“We want to assure them and the Liberian people that we will not be a disappointment to them, but will do everything in our strength to grow the LICPA from where she is now to play her role as enshrined in the Act creating the Institute.
He named the purchase US$85,000 building to host the Institute’s secretariat as one of his leadership’s highest achievements; something he said was the first of its kind since the establishment of the body in 1933. The dedication of the building is tentatively scheduled for December this year.
He said his leadership also increased the number of students for the professional and ATSWA programs to 185 and 350 respectively; and reduced the dependence on government subvention by increasing internal revenue generation.
According to him, under his leadership which started from November 15, 2018 to date, LICPA has generated a total of US$544,041.54 net of CPDs, membership levies dues and government grant. This was made possible through the leadership’s strategy captioned “Professionalizing the public sector,” he noted.
Under this program, he explained that the leadership developed a concept paper and marketed it to development partners including the World Bank, African Development Bank and UNDP, among others. He further that the concept paper highlighted the need for funding to train and certify public sector comptrollers, CFOs, finance directors and accountants as chattered accountants.
In addition, he said his leadership engaged a good number of private sector institutions under its private sector professionalization program to sponsor staff to be trained and certified as Chartered Accountants (CA) and Certified Public Accountants (CPA). The institutions that benefited are the United Bank of Africa (UBA), Ecobank Liberia, LBDI, SIB and International Bank.
According to him, his leadership also secured a World Bank grant of US$270,000. Implementation of the grant for the administration of LICPA’s professional exams started in 2020 and ongoing. His leadership, he also noted, hosted the regional Accountancy body, the Association of Accountancy Bodies in West Africa (ABWA) Council meeting in January 2021.
He disclosed that the LICPA will host the long awaited ECOWAS and the Association of Accountancy Bodies in Africa (ABWA) Joint Congress in Liberia. It followed the rectification of LICPA nomination by the ABWA Council to host the 2nd ECOWAS/ABWA Congress in March 2022. The event is expected to bring together over 250 professional accountants from member Professional Accountancy Organizations (PAO) within West Africa.
According to him, Liberia stands to benefit following the congress, as a ‘governance paper’ will be developed by the Secretariat for onward presentation to the Ministry of Finance as recommendation in a way that Liberia can boost her public financial management regime.
Outlining his plan for the Institute, the LICPA president-elect vowed to make the institute a household name by reactivating the Technical and Publicity Committees as well as increasing the membership base of the institute when inducted into office.
He also promised to integrate the (Syllabi Integration Program or SIP) into more tertiary institutions, increase the membership base of the Institute; as well as the construction of the Institute Secretariat. Planning towards sourcing alternative and additional sources of revenue including and the development and implementation of LICPA market strategy for the institute’s programs including the administration of the institute’s professional examinations are all part of the goal set for the future. Also in separate remarks, VP-elect Daniels and council member elect Mohammed B. Korleh vowed to support the Institute’s president by bringing onboard their respective expertise in making the
