Consistent with the Liberia Institute of Certified Public Accountant (LICPA) Act, members of that body have elected a new corps of officers to steer the affairs of the institution for the next three years.
Those elected include Victor Tanwone Sr., president and Papin Daniels Jr., vice-president, both retained their respective positions unopposed, while Mohammed B. Korleh defeated his rival thus becoming the newest Council member.
The election which was held during the LICPA’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) over the weekend in Monrovia brought together members from across various accounting firms including its statutory members from the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning and Central Bank of Liberia (CBL) among others.
Speaking to a team of reporters following his election, the LICPA’s president elect, Victor Tanwone lauded his colleagues for the confidence reposed in him to serve them for another three years thereby attributing his reelection to his performance during his first tenure.
“I am pleased to extend to the members of the LICPA for the confidence reposed in us by electing us on white ballots and that speaks volume and we want to assure you and the Liberian people that we will not be a disappointment to them but will do everything in our strength to grow the LICPA from where it is to play her role as enshrined in the Act creating the institute,” he said.
Highlighting his achievements during his first term, Mr. Tanwone noted that his leadership was able to purchase a building at the cost of US$85,000 to be used as the Institute’s Secretariat pending dedication by December of this year as well as increased the number of students for the professional and ATSWA programs to 185 and 350 respectively.
He noted further that his leadership, from November 15, 2018 to date, generated a total of US$544,041 net of CPDs, membership, levies dues and government subvention, emphasizing that it was made possible through our strategy captioned ‘professionalizing the public sector.’
“We also engaged a good number of private sector institutions under our private sector professionalization program to sponsor staff to be trained and certified as Chartered Accountants (CA) and Certified Public Accountants (CPA), and these institutions are United Bank of Africa (UBA), Ecobank Liberia, LIBD, SIB and International Bank,” Mr. Tanwone said.
According to him, his leadership also secured a World Bank grant of US$270,000 and implementation of the grant for the administration of LICPA’s professional exams started in 2020 and ongoing, adding that his leadership also hosted the regional Accountancy body, the Association of Accountancy Bodies in West Africa (ABWA) Council meeting in January of 2021.
Meanwhile, president Tanwone has also disclosed that the LICPA will in March, 2022, host the long awaited ECOWAS Association of Accountancy Bodies in Africa (ABWA) Joint Congress in Liberia, as it is expected to bring together over 250 professional accountants from member Professional Accountancy Organizations (PAO) within West Africa.
According to him, the joint congress, when held will see Liberia achieving a lot of which a note called ‘governance paper’ will be developed by the Secretariat at the end of the congress for onward presentation to the Ministry of Finance as a recommendation in a way that Liberia can boost her public financial management regime.
Outlining his plan for the institution, the LICPA’s president elect vowed to make the LICPA a household name by reactivating the Technical and Publicity Committees as well as increasing the membership base of the institute when inducted into office.
He also promised to integrate the (syllabi integration program or SIP) into more tertiary institutions as well as planning towards sourcing alternative and additional sources of revenue including the development and implementation of LICPA market strategy for the institute’s programs including the Administration of the institute’s professional examinations.