The Hindu Business Line : We need to put them in a fishbowl

ALMOST a week has passed by since the new ICAI council has taken charge of affairs in the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. As usual, the members would be busy establishing their little empires, holding mini-darbars and finding something to do and a lot to undo.

These are times when proceedings of legislatures and local bodies are televised. But when it comes to meetings of the Central Council, it is but hearsay you would have to rely on.

As with gossip, the one has heard the maximum such retold messages is considered knowledgeable. It would perhaps be long before the government mandates that rule-making by the ICAI is made a transparent affair, as if making the more-than-equal members swim in a fishbowl.

As things exist now, a grouse that many CAs harbour is that they are never educated by the body when new regulations get framed. One such change was on with eligibility for exams.

Many a student was left in the lurch by withholding of the results of the recent exam on a technical issue relating to the articleship period. Ditto with accounting standards and auditing guidelines, where nuances are left to the continuing education programmes that are attended more for `credit-hours'.

Lest it be concluded that accountants are eagerly thirsting for knowledge and that they are denied their due share by the Institute, here is something to illustrate the level of ignorance that prevails among the clan. On a visit to a CA branch located in the capital city of an important State, a faculty realised that the members there were blissfully unaware of the CA Bill that was out before Christmas 2003. Perhaps they are waiting for the Bill to be printed in the CA journal or a tax referencer.

If the Bill can be termed the culmination of a DR (that is, departmental relations) disaster for the ICAI, it is getting compounded by sloppy PR with its own members.

And, as with any disaster, there are people who are quick to show their hands and say, "No blood on me!"

So, it would not be unusual if you come across a Council member who tells you how he put up a valiant argument in the meeting against X who is the actual culprit, the sinner who has disgraced the Institute.

Now, if you were close enough to X, he might tell you a different story and you would have no way to check.

But the point that is missed is that collective responsibility is thrown to the winds even as governing members bicker and squabble.

AccountSpeak@thehindu.co.in

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