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| DG NIA Sunday Thomas |
Chuks Udo Okonta
The Accounting Technical Committee (ATC) of the Nigerian Insurers
Association (NIA) has recommended to the association steps operators should
take to enable them meet the deadline for the submission of their accounts to regulators.
The 10-point recommendations which were stated in the association’s annual report are coming at a time most operators are struggling to meet the deadline for submission of accounts to the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) and National Insurance Commission (NAICOM).
The committee called on operators to institute periodic audit, which
should be done quarterly or bi-annually to reduce the stress encountered in preparing
for the end of year audit.
They also called for investment on computer software/hardware and integration of all branches, stressing that the software should be International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) complaint.
Other steps are that companies should carry out human capital development
to address knowledge gap; documentation process should be computerised by
acquiring robust software for data capture; there should be early closure of
financial transaction with year end cut off date to facilitate timely reconciliation
and production of annual accounts; aligning financial year of subsidiaries with
parent company; work towards achieving March 31 timeline for submission of
financial statements; engage the same auditing firm for their local and foreign
subsidiaries and more qualified personnel should be deployed to the financial
reporting process.
It would be recalled that to stem the delay in submission of accounts,
the Nigerian Stock Exchange met the leadership of NAICOM recently to seek ways
of resolving issues and proffer ways to make improvement.
According to NAICOM only 38 companies had submitted their last year’s
accounts of which 19 had been approved.
The NSE stated that only eight companies had filed their accounts, while
only one submitted before the deadline
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