The financial audit profession in Romania appeared as an objective necessity in order to create and consolidate the market economy
Author:
Corneliu CÂRLAN
JEL:
DOI:
Keywords:
\N
Abstract:
Interview with Mr. Ion Mihăilescu, Ph.D., CFAR’s President\r\n\r\nThe financial audit profession in Romania appeared as an objective necessity in order to create and consolidate the market economy.\r\n\r\nThe problems solved were, on the one hand, the regulation, but also the functioning of the professional organisation. In all this activity a substantial support was provided by the Ministry of Public Finance, but we have also to point out the support provided by the Department for International Development of the United Kingdom Government and by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland. With their assistance we built the profession as such and its framework, but we also trained 300 trainers who, further on, generated the continuous professional education of the current financial auditors, the Chamber having now 1568 members. They benefit of professional standards, a code of ethics and a system for their continuous professional education and, generally speaking, a regulatory framework meant to guarantee their independence, objectivity and professionalism in practicing their profession.\r\n\r\nOn the other hand, a system for the access to the profession was created, following a three years period of training, compulsory for all the candidates, no matter their qualification or previous practice. Some would consider this too excesive, but we can not give up the quality requirements of the modern profession as financial auditor. In fact, within the Chamber structure is functioning a Department for Monitoring and Professional Competence in order to identify and to correct in due time the possible noncompliances in the actual financial audit activity.\r\n\r\nOur efforts try, of course, to affirm the Romanian profession at the international level. We became associate members of the International Federation of Acountants (IFAC) and we are working on CFAR’s application for FEE (Federation des Experts Comptables Européens) and SEEPAD (South Eastern Partnership on Accountancy Development) membership, the last one a regional professional association. We believe that the success of our efforts depends mainly by the recognition of the Chamber as a prestigious professional body and in this direction we intend to develop our cooperation with other bodies representing similar professions as far as concerns their profile and their area of interest in our country. However, at the international level we have an excellent cooperation with the World Bank and also with prestigious professional bodies as for example Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland, Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, Ordre des Experts Comptables and Conseil National des Commissaires aux Comptes in France. All these efforts are meant to accomplish the main objective of our organisation, which is to ensure the credibility and recognition for the financial audit profession in Romania, in order to give the possibility to the financial auditor, member of the Chamber, to practice his/her profession everywhere in the world based on the license issued by the CFAR.\r\n\r\nYear 2006 will be decisive for the qualitative improvement of the financial audit profession. We are forced in this by the imminent joining to EU, at that time wanting to have the Romanian financial audit professional at a level of competence, integrity and objectivity compatible with their peers in the European family we are preparing to access. For example, we intend to increase our efforts in order to improve our relations with the regulatory bodies, this way strengthening the role of the financial audit professional for the public interest.\r\n\r\nThan, we also consider a more efficient monitoring process for the profession. The scope of quality control includes an assessment of the internal quality control system of an audit firm by applying sufficient procedures for testing the compliance of the norms in preparing the audit files in order to check if these procedures are adequate. We want to see if the quality control systems are credible enough to maintain the public trust and to demonstrate to the regulatory bodies that they are fulfilling their responsibilities in the area.\r\n\r\nAlso, the Chamber will intensify its efforts in order to inform the financial auditors about the latest developments on the International Standards on Auditing, Assurance and Quality Control issued by International Audit and Assurance Board of International Federation of Accountants (IFAC).\r\nIn the continuous professional education area the Chamber implements the requirements of the International Education Standards. At the same time, the Chamber considers the requirements of the International Education Standard Draft „Competence requirements for audit professionals.\r\nIn all our endeavors, The Chamber, as professional body, joins its efforts to the efforts of the civil society and of the Romanian authorities in order to accomplish the objective of modernizing our country, by complying with all the responsibilities assumed in order to join UE at 1 January 2007. And for the market in this area to be sure that the Romanian professionals have the necessary capacity and qualities in order to guarantee a clean business environment, transparent and predictable.