The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) led by its chief executive, Helen Brand, has presented an award to the President of the Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, in recognition of the latter’s continuing support as a key employer of ACCA members.
Brand presented the award to Dangote during a courtesy visit to him.
According to a statement, Dangote, during discussions acknowledged the relevance of ACCA members, stating that an ACCA member with an entrepreneurial mindset is more solution driven.
The industrialist pointed out that his company does not have enough ACCA professionals, adding that the Dangote Group and the Nigerian economy was struggling to get talent in finance, especially with the rapid changes in business and technology.
Dangote noted that the future was bright globally, saying he would continue to work towards wealth creation. He noted that the future in Africa is huge. He shared how the profitability of Dangote Group had doubled during recession due to the urgency for cost effectiveness that was created, saying his businesses were considering doing more business outside Africa from 2020, as the African environment tends to pose many barriers for businesses.
According to him, developing capabilities was critical to the growth of businesses and the economy in Nigeria and the future is the SMEs.
Dangote said the progress of intra-Africa trade was getting better with the introduction of the ECOWAS passport. He however noted that there were still work to be done with Africans/ African countries having a general acceptance and support of each other to support the objective which is to aid cooperation and not competition.
On her part, Brand acknowledging Dangote’s concerns shared results of the ACCA employer-led global research: “Social Mobility: Purpose and the Profession’ which revealed that social mobility was transforming the potential talent pool for professional accountants.
She also highlighted the seven quotients developed from ACCA’s research titled ‘Professional Accountants: The Future’ and how the ACCA qualification ensures the sustainability of these skills through the recent changes in the qualification; further highlighting ACCA’s work around policy development through its professional insights. Dangote was quite pleased with this information, expressing concerns on the issue of skills gap and its effects on policy contribution.
Also present at the meeting was a Partner & Head of Tax, West Africa, PwC, Taiwo Oyedele, who agreed that policy contribution was more practical with business owners and entrepreneurs.
He added that the highest risk of doing business was inconsistency of government policies.
Helen Brand shared highlights of the ‘Professional Accountants – The Future’ follow-up research titled ‘Generation Next’ particularly the finding that 81% of over 18000 young professionals in over 150 countries say that they want to own their businesses at some point.
