Former President Zillur Rahman today asked chartered accountants to play a more responsible role in ensuring financial transparency and accountability of individuals and organizations for the interest of the government and the people.

"I believe you will also show your accountability and patriotism," he said while inaugurating the International Conference of Chartered Accountants 2010' at Hotel Sonargaon here.

 
Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bangladesh (ICAB) organized the international conference with the theme `Role of Chartered Accountants in the Mobilization of National Reso'.

Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus spoke as the special guest while Bangladesh Bank Governor Dr Atiur Rahman presented the keynote paper.

ICAB President Dr Jamaluddin Ahmed, Vice President M Abdus Salam and chairman of the conference organizing committee Abbas Uddin Khan also spoke on the occasion.

Former President Zillur Rahman said the government mostly dependents on direct and indirect taxes to mitigate the expenses of the national budget. "But many individuals and organizations make their annual financial balance in such a way to avoid paying more tax which doesn't reflect the real accounts," he said.

The President said it's a demand of time to make the financial management more clean and disciplined in this
competitive world.

Referring to gradual increase in the volume of annual budget that has already crossed hundreds of crore of Taka, Zillur Rahman said, "I believe the role of professional accountants is very important to ensure proper management of the huge budget for both the public and private sector." he said.

The President also expressed his belief that both local and international participants of the conference would be benefited by sharing their latest knowledge and experience on chartered accountant.

Nearly 500 charter accountants including 45 from different member states of SAARC participated in the daylong conference.

Professor Yunus said time has now come to bring reforms in the financial system in the backdrop of recent global economic crisis. "Social business can be a solution in which people would do business not for only making profit rather benefit of the common people," he added.

The Nobel laureate questioned about the role of charter accountants in the global economic crisis as they failed to
forecast the impending disaster. There were `pollution' among the auditors, financial managers and business authorities, Prof Yunus added.

He said we have to redesign our financial policy keeping in mind the harsh experience.

Prof. Yunus said same kind of financial recession may take place again and Bangladesh will not be able to avoid the fallout.

He urged the charter accountants to perform their corporate social corporate responsibility at own initiatives.

Dr Atiur Rahman said the government is actively considering enacting new laws for the professional accountants to ensure financial transparency and accountability in every sector.

The central bank governor laid emphasis on maintaining international standard in the financial management considering the increasing trend of cross border trade in this era of globalization.

He said the Bangladesh Bank has taken initiatives to increase tax and GDP ratio under its five years strategic plan
from 2011-2015.