The Malaysian Institute of Accountants (MIA) has proposed to amend the Accountants’ Act 1967 so as to enable it to participate more actively in designing surveillance mechanisms and disciplinary actions against errant accountants. By having such amendments, MIA also want to enhance local accountants’ competitiveness on the global front.

MIA president Nik Mohd Hasyudeen Yusoff said that MIA has already worked with the Ministry of Finance and have issued a consultative document regarding the proposed amendments to various key players such as the Securities’ Commission, Bank Negara, universities and other professional accounting bodies. MIA has obtained their feedback and will be finalizing the proposed amendments by the end of the year and hope that the proposed new amendments can tabled at the Parliament as soon as possible,

At the opening ceremony of the National Accountants Conference 2007 themed “Accountants: Towards Excellence, Achieving World Class” Nik Mohd Hasyudeen said the MIA was looking at how the accounting profession could be restructured in order to be resilient towards the changes in a competitive environment, partly due to globalisation, in which changes to the Accountants’ Act 1967 would be required.
Examples some of the shortfalls that can be addressed are

• to have a more robust process in the accounting environment, so that MIA can react faster to make sure public confidence in the capital market is sustained, for instance, under the current Act, we find difficulty in addressing the distress in the capital market because of the way the Act is structured.
• With the amendments, MIA would be able to investigate alleged accounting malpractices faster by enlarging the number of investigative committees that would speed up the process and help prevent adverse reports from circulating in the capital market.
• would allow MIA to recognise more overseas accountants, and vice versa. For example, there are accountants from Vietnam that are interested in practising in Malaysia In turn the MIA member can also be accepted as professional accountants overseas.
  (The Star,Malaysia,13/11/07)

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