The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) has conferred ACCA Recognition Award on the chairman, Dangote Industries Ltd, Alhaji Aliko Dangote,
Presenting the award to the industrialist in Lagos recently, the chief executive of ACCA, Helen Brand said the conferment was in recognition of Dangote’s unflinching support as a key employer of ACCA members.
The ACCA boss use the occasion to highlight the ‘Professional Accountants – The Future’ follow-up research titled ‘Generation Next’ particularly the findings that 81 per cent of over 18000 young professionals in over 150 countries say that they want to own their businesses at some point.
She also shared the results of the ACCA employer-led global research: ‘Social Mobility: Purpose and the Profession’ which has revealed that social mobility is transforming the potential talent pool for professional accountants.
Besides, Brand highlighted the seven quotients developed from ACCA’s research titled ‘Professional Accountants: The Future’ and how the ACCA qualification ensures the sustainability of skills through the recent changes in the qualification.
Furthermore, she highlighted ACCA’s work around policy development through its professional insights.
Responding, Dangote appreciated the information and expressed concern about skills gap and its effects on policy contribution.
He acknowledged the relevance of ACCA professionals stressing that an ACCA professional with an entrepreneurial mindset “is even more solution driven”.
However, he said his company does not have enough ACCA professionals adding that the firm and even the economy is struggling to get experts in finance, especially with the rapid changes in business and technology.
“Dangote Plc in particular has more challenges, with a revenue projection of over $4 billion to over $30 billion in 2020 which underpins an increasing need to have people with business agility to deal with changes in business models,” he added.
Nevertheless, he said the future is bright globally and pledged that he would continue to work towards wealth creation.
He also disclosed how Dangote Group had kept afloat during recession due to the urgency for cost effectiveness that was created.
However, Dangote said he was considering doing more business outside Africa from 2020 stating that “African environment tends to pose many barriers to businesses.”
“Developing capabilities is critical to the growth of businesses and the economy in Nigeria and the future is the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)
“The progress of intra-Africa trade is getting better with the introduction of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) passport. However, there is 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,” he added.
Also present at the event was Taiwo Oyedele, partner and head of tax, West Africa, PwC, who agreed that policy contribution “is even more practical with business owners and entrepreneurs” adding that the highest risk of doing business is inconsistency of government policies.
