Obazee leads speakers to e-Accounting confab

The Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Accounting Standards Board, Mr. Jim Obazee, will next month deliver a paper as keynote speaker on the theme of the first annual Accounting & Audit Technology Conference and exhibition slated to hold at the Lagos Sheraton.

The theme of the conference is ‘Technology in Accounting & Auditing’, according to the host and Chief Executive Officer, EDP Audit and Security Associates, Mr. Chris Ekeigwe was chosen to highlight the importance of technology in the accounting and auditing professions.

He also said his firm has advanced plans to hold e-Accounting Technowledge conference 2011 in the month of July between 25 and 27.

Apart from Obazee, Mr. Ekeigwe said there are 12 other speakers to made presentations at the three-day event, including himself, chief executive officer of SystemSpecs Limited, Mr. John Obaro, Head, Risk and Compliance Services at KPMG Nigeria, Mr. Olumide Olayinka, Group Head, Information Technology, First City Monument Bank plc, Mr. Emeka Eboegbune, Presales Manager for Applications at Oracle Africa operations, Mr. Olumide Biyi and Senior Consultant cum Head, Data Quality-Integrity Assurance Group at EDP, Ms Amarachi Lois Ukaegbu among others.

Briefing Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) reporters at the weekend in Lagos, Mr. Ekeigwe said that the e-Accounting conference, seeks to bridge a gap in accounting and audit technology vision in the profession.

He noted that as the digital economy was developing, the finance, accounting and audit professions in Africa were skittish to confront the challenges of technology.

“Consequently, the professions are largely blindsided by technology developments in business,” he said, stressing that looking at the industry today, one could see that these professions are at the margin of information technology issues in organisations.

He described this as a shame because these professions were prepared by history to lead in business management and the information systems used in running the business.

Ekeigwe added that because the irresolute and cavalier attitude towards technology, finance, accounting and audit professionals have been relegated to the background in technology matters in the organisaton.

He attributed the observed levity to both individual and institutional, which is worsened by the absence of leadership initiatives aimed at reversing the on-going decline to obscurity of the profession in the information age.

“The absence of vision and strategy to capture a greater future for the profession in the digital economy will result in blinkered economic and technology decisions by members and institutions in the profession. This is a dangerous position to be in,” he lamented.

Therefore, he said, that this industry conference has compelling motivation and message for finance, accounting and audit professionals.

“The professions must reverse their technology incompetence, take their rightful position in information systems ecology and lead technology in organisations or risk being relegated to tawdry professions or to obscurity at the margin of society,” he said.

Ekeigwe said this is a serious concern to be addressed with a sense of urgency, elucidating that Biology teaches that ‘adaptation’ is necessary for competition and survival in nature.

He stressed that if the world has changed technologically, then nature dictates that finance, accounting and audit professionals must adapt in order to survive and prosper.

“We need behavioral adaptation to survive technology epochs of our time,” he submitted, stressing that the aforementioned professions must adopt new skills developments behaviours that will help them catch up with the curve of technology change.

Remmy Nweke:
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Capacity building: CNP votes N500m on knowledge economy

The Computerize Nigeria Project (CNP) has voted the sum of N500 million on capacity building of budding entrepreneurs on knowledge economy by 2015, reports REMMY NWEKE.

CNP is a non-profit organisation set up by Information Technology (IT) technocrats led by the chairman of Zinox Group, Dr. Leo-Stan Ekeh in 2001 with the former Vice Chancellor of the University of Lagos (UNILAG), Prof. Oye Ibidapo-Obe currently as chairman.

This, CNP said, would create affordable access to Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools and processes for budding entrepreneurs in the country.

Disclosing this recently at the one-day seminar on the Spirit of the True Nigerian Entrepreneur held in Abuja, the chairman of Zinox Group, Dr. Leo-Stan Ekeh, said that the vote would pave the way for shaping the future through a digital revolution.

“The Computerize Nigeria Project is set to invest N500m on capacity building in the knowledge economy in the next five years,” he said.

Ekeh explained that this intervention would come phases including conducting of a yearly entrepreneurial conference and an annual award of 25 post graduate scholarships to deserving Nigerian youths.

The annual conference, he said, would still be organized under the aegis of the Spirit of the True Nigerian Entrepreneur, while the scholarships would be delivered under the Computerize Nigeria Fan Club to be established at States and National levels with a membership drive of over 4 million within the next two years country-wide.

He pointed out that each year; the Spirit of the True Nigeria Entrepreneur would bring in renowned world-class resource persons to train a new generation of Nigerian entrepreneurs.

“Entrepreneurship training would continually seek to address the felt needs of the economy in the area of capacity building,” he said.

According to him, the objective of the Spirit of the True Nigeria Entrepreneur conference is to produce, in ten years, over 10,000 entrepreneurs who will help to achieve the objectives of Vision 20 20:20.

The first SoTNE attracted over 500 participants in the rationalization of CNP that entrepreneurship training was at the peak of the aspiration pyramid of the typical Nigerian.

CNP, he said, has conceptualized to train 1,000 entrepreneurs in partnership with the Federal Ministry of Labour and Productivity, to celebrate Nigeria’s 50th anniversary, the Spirit of the True Nigeria Entrepreneur Conference surpassed the expectations of all by the quality, comportment and contributions of the dignitaries, participants and resource persons at the event.

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