‘A sustainable public sector’: ACCA’s 9th International Public Sector Conference 2019 tackles the difficult questions

The International Public Sector Accounting Conference, hosted by ACCA (The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants), was successfully held in Prague, Czech Republic. The two-day annual conference focused on the sustainability of public sector accounting and attracted hundreds of public sector professionals from the public sector including Zamir Ahmad, Deputy Auditor General, Pakistan.

The sustainable development of infrastructure was one of the important topics at the conference. The conference also included the launch of a flagship new report from ACCA on bridging the infrastructure gap’.

The sustainability themed event covered a number of broad and inter-related subjects including, sustainable development of infrastructure financing, effective public financial management and implementation of international standards, the role of professional accountants in combating fraud, corruption and serious organized crime, financial innovation in the public domain in the digital age and the role of the supreme audit institutions in safeguarding the sustainable development of the public sector.

The conference attracted a number of leaders from the accounting sector, including John Manzoni, Chief Executive of the UK Civil Service, Tomas Muller Marques-Berger, Chair of the Accountancy Europe public sector panel and four Auditor Generals/ Deputy Auditor Generals – from Jamaica, Nigeria, Pakistan and Tanzania.

Helen Brand, Chief Executive, ACCA said, “We are pleased to note that the guests who participated in the conference included outstanding speakers from all over the world and shared the latest developments in public finance management for the participants. The expectations for public service quality are getting higher and higher, and the financial constraints faced by the public sector are increasing. This meeting actively demonstrates how professional accountants should play a central role in driving change and improving accountability to ensure public sector financial management can meet future development needs.”

Speaking of the conference, Sajjeed Aslam, head of ACCA Pakistan said, “The public sector is facing intense challenges – from increasing scrutiny on spending, to constrained funding to the challenges of delivering high quality services in an increasingly digital world. Professional accountants serving in the public sector play a central role in tackling fraud, corruption and serious organised crime. Ethical behaviour is fundamental in this sector, and so this was a timely event to assess best practices and learn from an interconnected global network of public sector finance professionals and policy makers. We have more than 64,000 ACCA members and students around the world working in the public sector helping build the public sector accounting profession that the world needs.”

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