THE WAY FORWARD
ICAEW NEW MEMBERS EVENT, Tuesday 12 November,
Pearl Continental Hotel, LAHORE
I am deeply grateful to my brother Chartered Accountants Mr. Muhammad Maqbool and to Mr. Fazal Mahmood for their kind invitation to be with you this evening.
I am equally indebted to Mr. Daniel Westley, Senior International Business Development Manager, ICAEW, U.K. for his help and support.
This evening is a special occasion for 30 of you. It is being held to honour your achievement in being admitted as members of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales. The Institute has at present 153,000 members spread globally over 148 countries.
It is an equally special one for me, for exactly sixty years ago, this month, I sat for my Final exam in London. I passed it on the first attempt and was duly enrolled as an Associate member in 1965.
At the time, the ICAEW had more than 30,000 members. My enrolment number was 5141084. I was told that there are only 20 of us alive in Pakistan who qualified before 1965.
The ICAEW programme was different in those days. It was in a sense quite student friendly. Articles were for five years. Midway, you had to sit for the Intermediate exam. You could keep sitting for it until you passed, except that you had to pass it before the expiry of your articles.
The final exam was in your fifth year or any time thereafter.
There was no ceremony such as this one tonight to celebrate your admission as an ACA. An English postman informed you whether you had passed or not. A white letter signified pass; a pink letter fail. Your certificate of admission came also in the post.
I do not need to remind you of the number of exams you have had to sit for to be eligible for ICAP, or for ICAEW. The wide range of subjects, the period of training (Maqbool sahib told me it is now 450 days), the number of case studies are all evidence of the beneficial change that has been brought into both Institutes in training.
As I mentioned earlier, I was enrolled as an ICAEW member in 1965, and then as an ICAP member in 1966. My number was 327.
Today, ICAP has over 10,000 members in Pakistan and abroad. And out of them 900 of them in Pakistan are like you also ICAEW members who have qualified under the new dispensation.
With your permission, I would like to share an anecdote with you about my early membership in ICAP.
Some years ago, I was invited by ICAP to attend a function in Karachi. I called ICAP to confirm my participation. The telephonist asked for my name and other details. When I gave her my membership number, she sounded astonished.
‘But it cannot be 327?’
‘Why’? I asked her.
‘It can’t be 327. Your voice is so young!!’
But enough of the past. We are here tonight to honour you in the present and to look into the future of the profession we have all chosen to join.
Over the years our profession has progressed from bookkeeping to accounting. It has diversified into auditing a gamut of professional services. Our members have become leaders in our profession, in industry, commerce, and even in politics. Our Deputy Prime Minister & Foreign Minister, for example, is a Chartered Accountant.
Most importantly, both Institutes keep improving and modernising their curriculums. That is vital if their members are to remain abreast (if not ahead) of contemporary developments made necessary by newer technologies.
Both ICAP and ICAEW have improved their inter-professional cooperation by making it possible for ICAP members to top off their qualifications by sitting for ICAEW papers. As you have discovered, the ICAEW is a topping-off of your existing qualification. Inevitably, that means that many of those who have opted to use this route are in the 35-40 age bracket.
The nearest equivalent I can think of is a MBA progamme. Business Schools have found that the greatest benefit both to the participants and to class interaction comes from the sharing of experience acquired post-graduation.
Those of you who are new ICAEW members will be joining 900 existing members in Pakistan. Their numbers are increasing by about 100 every year. This year there were 110.
Looking at you, one is proud to be Pakistani. Wherever you choose to work, here or abroad, you represent the best our country can offer our and the world.
Among you, I notice are many ladies.
Let me end this speech therefore with a personal anecdote. Soon after becoming an ICAP member, I encountered a fellow CA who happened to be a lady. We talked. I told my driver later that she possessed the same qualification as I had.
He looked shocked. “You mean you went all the way to England to learn women’s work.’’
As Chartered Accountants we are not gender specific. If anything, we are professionally specific. We share a commitment to offer our best expertise to our employers – whether clients and shareholders in commerce or industry – as Pakistanis, ICAP members and as members of the ICAEW fraternity.
F. S. AIJAZUDDIN |
