Pravinesh Singh New FIA President

Pravinesh Singh is the new President of the Fiji Institute of Accountants (FIA). Mr Singh was elected for one year term, past Friday during the FIA annual general meeting at Suva’s Grand Pacific Hotel.

The Chief Financial Officer of the Fiji National Provident Fund, will now lead the 800 plus financial members of FIA from his predecessor, Nitesh Lal.

He said the year 2019-2020 not only marked a critical year for the Institute but for our nation and for the entire world.

“Who would have predicted that a virus could bring the world to a standstill?

“The year 2020, almost gone and what a year it will be in the history of mankind.

“Where everything happened and nothing happened at the same time. We have been forced to live our lives the way that we never did before. We have learned new things, formed new habits and have moved to a new normal state.

“The way we do business has evolved and is ever evolving day by day and we as accountants have played and are playing a major role in re-shaping our businesses, our society and our nation as we move forward.

“Our Institute is no exception.”

Mr Lal during the AGM highlighted some of the key achievements by the Institute this year:

Congress

• Regrettably we had to postpone our Congress for 2020 together with the AGM which was initially scheduled for May this year.

A lot of hard work had gone into the planning and preparations of the 2020 Congress and I would like to acknowledge the good work of my Congress Committee and the Secretariat team for this.

• As always to maintain the quality of the Congress, we were prepared to bring in world class speakers, the likes of the:
• Former NZ PM Sir Bill English, former NZ Trade Minister Hon. Tim Grosser,
• The first women ever to sky dive Mount Everest,
• and our local business tycoon Wah Sing was amongst some of the confirmed speakers for the Congress.

Business and Government

• I commend our Business and Government Committee for the good work done on the budget submission for 2019/2020 in April last year.
• Throughout 2019 and 2020 the Committee met with representatives of FRCS to discuss variety of tax issues including TPOS.
• The Committee members also attended number of training sessions run by FRCS on TPOS. The Committee also had regular meetings with FRCS on Customs & Excise, VAT and other tax matters.
• Earlier this year, the Committee made a submission to the COVID-19 Response Budget in March and then a submission to the National Budget 2020-21 in June.
• I must thank all the members who provided their input for the budget submission to the Institute.
• Members, I must say that the Institute has been trying for some years to push for certain tax reforms and other measures through our budget submission with the Government.
• I am happy to say that this year both our budget submissions have been well received and most of the recommendations that we put forward was taken on board by the Government.
• This is a result of working together with our stakeholders and managing of such important stakeholder relationship.

The Act & Rules

• In addition to the budget submission and our strengthened relationship with Government, The Institute has made a big progress towards review of our proposed FIA Act and FIA Rules in 2020.

You will read in our Annual Report the history and progress made till 2019 in regards to our proposed Act and Rules.

• We have also held multiple meetings with the Office of the Solicitor General regarding our proposed Bill and as of today we have almost completed the entire review of the Act with them and we are now working on the new set of Rules that will go together with the Act.
• The Institute is positive that if not in the next Parliament sitting, we will definitely push for the Act to be presented in the following Parliament sitting.

Women’s Initiatives

• We are particularly proud of the Women in Leadership series that has proven to be a huge success since we launched it in March 2019.
• With the support of our partner BSP Life (Fiji) Limited we were able to hold five separate Women in Leadership events between March to October 2019. Three events were held in Suva and two in Nadi.
• The series has allowed us to address the need for opportunities for women and men to come together to discuss issues related to women at work place and women in leadership roles.
• The event in March 2020 at the GPH received 111 participants.

Membership and Accreditation

• The FIA membership registers as at 31 December 2019 recorded 868 financial members an increase of six per cent from 2018.
• As at October 31, 2020 the register had 828 financial members.

Mr Lal, the FIA immediate Past President and council member, sincerely thanked his fellow council members, the Secretariat, the members of the various Committees,

He thanked the FIA financial members and all other stakeholders for their invaluable support and contributions during his term.

Mr Lal says: “This has been an immensely enjoyable and fruitful experience.

“My only request is that you will extend the same support to the incoming president and council for the coming year with focus on our vision and the preparatory works to delivering the FIA 50th Anniversary in 2022.

“It has been an honour to serve you. I am certain that you will all agree that despite the challenges of (COVID-19).

“As an Institute, we have persevered and remained persistent with our commitment to our stakeholders, partners, sponsors, our members and the many individuals that we have assisted directly or otherwise.”

Feedback: maraia.vula@fijisun.com.fj