Deposit Money Banks face up to N5bn fine, while their external auditors may be imprisoned for partial or non-disclosure of certain costs and expenses in their 2014 financial statements, the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria’s revised guidelines and regulations for inspection and monitoring of banks and other reporting entities have shown.
- The Chief Executive Officer and Executive Secretary, Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria, Mr. Jim Obazee, who confirmed the development at a news conference announcing plan to unveil the National Code of Corporate Governance in Lagos on Wednesday, said a number of banks and other reporting entities had already submitted their 2014 financial reports to the council for review.
- He said the council would be reviewing the reports in line with the IFRS and other necessary regulatory standards.
- Obazee declared that banks that failed to make necessary disclosures in their books in line with the IFRS or found to have committed certain regulatory infractions risked various amounts of fines, depending on the materiality of the infractions.
- The external auditors of the affected banks, he said, might also lose their practising licences and could also face jail terms.
- According to him, some of the accounting and disclosure anomalies that the regulator will be looking are improper classification of expenses such as directors and auditors’ remuneration; failure to disclose analysis of expenses by nature; and offsetting of interest received and paid, or dividend paid and received in a statement of cash flows, non performing, revenue recognition, income classification, disclosures, measurement and recognition, accounting policies implementation loans among others.
- FRC report led by Obazee was used by the FG to oust then CBN Governor Lamido Sanusi
- Source: Punch