Dear esteemed professional brothers and sisters,
I must express my deep sense of thanks and gratitude for a very positive reaction and support extended by dear members in dealing with the CPT question paper leakage issue. I am really thankful to all my professional colleagues for giving me solid and strong support during those hours of crisis. This kind of unified approach enables not only the office of President, but the entire Institute to function in a positive, cohesive and focussed manner bringing better image in the eyes of public and society.
I have received hundreds of emails and SMSs, complimenting my response in TV interview and subsequent steps of re-examination on 26th August. More than that, both students and members have appreciated the letter written by me and sent along with the Admit Card. This was received by the students with a very warm and positive response in a cheerful mood forgetting and forgiving the rarest of the rare incident of question paper having been sold by unscrupulous elements.
I have been fortunate enough to visit various Branches across the country while inaugurating the Regional Conferences, National Seminars and workshops etc. Members are appreciating that the President, instead of visiting various branches in small numbers, is adopting a better, fruitful and more result oriented method of addressing larger gatherings of 500 to 1000 members participating in one event. This in turn also allows the President to meet so many members from nook and corner of the country, exchange views and also in turn receive many positive and valuable suggestions for value added benefit to the Council and the Institute. This is really a very helpful and beneficial exercise, though sometimes, to many it sounds and looks too taxing on the President.
The economy is booming, GDP is growing and inflation is decreasing. When we see such a tremendous growth in trade, commerce and industry all over, the question is why the profession should lag behind. It is our endeavour in the Council as well as my personal efforts to see that all the members, both in practice and in industry, must get appropriate and due recognition. What I mean by that is that not only the attractive salary packages and perks are paid to our sincere and hard working members working in industry, but also appropriate and handsome fees are paid to the members who are in practice. By nature and by tradition, we have developed a habit of charging miniscule fee. This has allowed the clients to take many practicing members for granted, when it comes to appropriately remunerating them for their outstanding skills and services. Let me reiterate, which I am emphasising at all functions and gatherings that we should never compromise for cheaper and lower fees when it comes to being adequately remunerated. It should not sound that we should charge very high or exorbitant fees as some of the other professionals might be doing, but at least we should not be undervalued by the clients. We now have to bear heavy cost of stipend to articled assistants, much higher cost of salaried employees and manpower and also good amount of expenditure on infrastructure and other facilities. When the clients want increased and better services, they have to correspondingly pay optimum remuneration to us. I therefore, appeal to all the members that they should never compromise in charging fees and by no means ever involve in under-cutting or reducing the fees. The fees charges should not be less than the recommended scale of fees, which is given hereunder:
Revision of recommended Scale of Fee Chargeable
for the Work Done by the Members of the Institute.
I always say to my fellow colleagues that we must learn the art of saying NO. By saying no to some of our clients, we may lose very few clients, but all others will be happily paying you the increased higher fees and believe me, those who will go away, will come back soon looking into your sincere, dedicated and value added services. That is the crux of the message I want to send to all my professional brothers and sisters.
Another most important matter that I wish to communicate to you is our adherence to ethical standards and good governance. We have Chartered Accountants Act and Code of Ethics. Many say that there is no definition of “other misconduct” therein. But what we at the Council believe is that ethics always begin with conscious and ends with conscious. While doing an act, if your conscious does not permit it, please do not do it. It might turn out that if you happen to do it, it may tantamount to other misconduct. Therefore, always try to knock the door of your own inner conscious rather than referring to the Code of Ethics or to the Act and the Regulations. Same applies mutatis mutandis to good governance. We must honestly ensure that all mandatory as well as recommendatory measures are adhered to by each one of us in letter and spirit. Good governance is nothing but following the code and law in its true sense. If we adhere to good governance, our successors, be it our junior partners, employees or students, will take example from that and will follow it more vigorously and sincerely. We have to set examples for our future generations to follow rather than allow any of them to point a finger on us for compliance in respect of good governance. Money and wealth has its own importance, charm and recognition, but undoubtedly ethics are much beyond and above all these materialistic attractions. There are exceptional examples of our members who have fallen in the trap of lust of money and consequently faced severe action of disciplinary mechanism. To illustrate, it is like abiding the traffic rules, whether the traffic police is present or not. If there is a red signal on the crossing, your leg must be on the brake. If this sense develops, then good governance will not only develop automatically, but will be enforced by you suo moto and automatically. I am sure all of you will join me in this endeavour of mine in improvising ethical standards in pursuit of professional excellence and above all to prove that the profession of Chartered Accountants is really one of the most noble professions in the world.
I Adore My Profession
I Salute My Institute
I Respect My Council
I am proud to be a Chartered Accountant
Yours sincerely
SUNIL TALATI
President, ICAI
Date: September 20, 2007
Place: New Delhi.
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