Guru Speak

However, accounting scandals have been disclosed from time to time that finally resulted in financial turmoil and the closure of many companies worldwide.

The roles of accounting and controllership have been questioned since the Asian financial crisis in 1997 and the current global credit meltdown. It's time to review and standardise the accepted practices over accounting and financial supervision.

Strengthening the controllership of a company requires understanding, cooperation and support from all employees who embrace the concept and procedure of good corporate governance.

In Asia, where the working culture does include seniority belief, subordinators seem to listen to the senior people and don't want to challenge the inappropriate practices unless they really have to.

How can we address this issue so that a new cultural change can be started?

I believe that underthetable money paid to authoritative officers - to get certain types of benefit such as faster import clearing or required certificate of sales permission - still can be found in some countries.

This kind of illegal practice becomes an obstacle to foreign investment promotion among countries within Asean. And unless we stop it soon enough, it could be developed into an acceptable practice for companies.

So don't be surprised if you happen to learn that the balance sheet and the profit and loss statement are being distorted with nonreceipt supporting transactions.

The auditor's opinion on the financial statement presentation is also another concern in today business environment.

Some audit firms seem to fail to address the internalcontrol weakness that will lead to the improvement of the company's financial discipline and transparency. A new auditing and enforcement standard may need to be explored so that the audit work can be more value added to the company's stakeholders.

There should not be any questions over the independence of the real professional auditors.

No one wants to see another meltdown of the Asean financial and economic system. A more powerful warning system should be created and instituted into businesses and ultimately developed at the national level. We are talking about a robust information system that requires huge resource allocation from all country members. The sharing and integration of knowledge concerning effective controllership, together with necessary regulation, should be seriously considered.