Building investors confidence in African region

The Minister of Financial Services and Good Governance, Mr Dharmendar Sesungkur, the Chairperson of AFIAAR, Mr Admire Ndurunduru and other personalities were present.

In his address, the Minister highlighted that Mauritius fully recognises the importance of AFIAAR in its role to ensuring security and stability for global investments into the African continent. He thus called on broader and stronger membership among the African countries so that they can positively influence the international standard setting agenda for their own benefits. 

Government and financial services regulators across the world, he indicated have been actively regulating and taking bold steps to boost public confidence and maintain the stability of their capital in view to redress audit failures, inadequate reporting and inherent weaknesses in self-regulation. Mauritius, he mentioned has set up independent audit regulators to keep a close eye on the quality and rigour of the financial reporting and auditing landscape adding that standards are being constantly up-scaled to outperform international norms and practices.

In view to strengthen audit quality and regulation, his Ministry, he said, is adopting international standards and taking anticipatory legislative action to guard against risks and challenges.  To that effect, mandatory audit firm rotation for listed entities has been introduced to address concerns with respect to excessively long tenures and auditor independence, he indicated.   As from 1^st January 2020, audit firms will be required to comply with this new requirement in the law which takes our jurisdiction closer to good governance principles and international best practices, he added.

Minister Sesungkur also cautioned about unprecedented changes and shifts in financial reporting in the future as emerging trends require more non-financial information and integrated reporting including environmental, social and governance aspects. On this score, he emphasised on the need to continue improving the auditor’s communication to stakeholders for better relevance and significance to users. 

As for the Chairperson of AFIAAR, Mr Admire Ndurunduru, said that the establishment of the forum is intended to formalise efforts for collaboration and strengthening of independent auditing, and accounting regulation among African countries by formalising a common base to advance audit regulatory activities.  The forum will also promote market integrity, transparency and ethical business practices that conform to evolving international norms and standards he added.

AFIAAR

AFIAAR was established in March 2018 to enhance a climate of investor confidence, improve audit quality, and to ensure security and stability for global investments into the African continent. It aims to provide a platform to share information regarding the audit market environment and ethics, with focus on independent audit regulations and audit quality as well as attain international membership to the global forum. The founding members of AFIAAR are: accounting /auditing regulatory bodies of Botswana, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mauritius.