ICAI to be part of global body

Recognising India's robust accounting standards, the apex global body of chartered accountants, International Federation Of Accountants, has decided to give the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India a place in its 15-member-strong Public Sector Committee.

"The need to make a body like PSC, which has so far notified 21 international public sector accounting standards, was felt in order to make the accounting procedures of governments more transparent as well as correct," IFAC's PSC chairman Philippe Adhemar told reporters in New Delhi on Monday.

Praising the accounting standards in India, Adhemar said, IFAC's nominating committee had decided to include India this time, for its usual three-year tenure. India's name is expected to be cleared at the body's upcoming meeting in Paris next week.

ICAI president Sunil Goyal said the body would also seek co-operation from the comptroller and auditor general of India.

"The government is pretty serious on the issue and has constituted a body under the chairmanship of the deputy comptroller & auditor general S Sathyamoorthy to study how to adopt IFAC's IPSASS," he said.

Also, former ICAI president N D Gupta is a member of the IFAC board, the decision-making body of the global agency, which works with 157 member organisations in 118 countries.

For India, which is one of the founding members of IFAC, this will be the sixth nomination on the global body's various committees. Currently, India is a member of IFAC's education and public accountants in business committees as well as a part of the task forces on Small and Medium Enterprises and corporate governance.

So far 20 accrual basis IPSASS and a comprehensive cash basis IPSASS have been issued by the PSC.

Going forward, the committee has agreed on its work programme priorities that include addressing public sector specific financial reporting issues (such as accounting for social policies of governments, accounting for taxation revenue and budget reporting) and convergence of IPSASS with the international financial reporting standards.

Adhemar said IPSASS were currently being applied by the OECD and Nato.