CA Sri Lanka announces 51st Annual Report Awards

By Zahara Zuhair
Entries are now open for the  Annual Report Awards Competition, organised by The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka (CA Sri Lanka), the national professional accounting body , which is aimed at recognising and rewarding excellence in financial reporting.

In an effort to promote transparency, accountability and good governance, the competition is open to any organisation ranging from conglomerates to NGOs, to SMEs that produces an annual report.

Conducted for the 51st time, the main objectives of the competition are to encourage effective communication to stakeholders through publication of informative annual reports, promote effective presentation of financial and non-financial information, and to comply with legislative and generally accepted accounting practices.

Themed, ‘Clarity Redefined’ the event also expects to enlighten Sri Lankan corporates on evolving global trends in annual reporting and encourages them to adopt best practices to be on par with their global counterparts.

CA Sri Lanka Vice President  Lasantha Wickremasinghe said that a good annual report highlights the background stories effectively so that it will create an understanding amongst readers about the organisations ethics, values, achievements and most importantly the future orientation of the organisation.

Annual Report Awards committee Chairman, Tishan Subasinghe speaking on the importance of the event said that this is the only award ceremony that has served the business community for 51 years continuously.

Giving an overview of the awards he said  “ We are looking for Annual Reports that are clear, cohesive and customised to reflect the operations of each individual company” he told while adding that in previous years some Annual Reports has been copied and pasted from some other companies Annual reports and that is  not what they really expect.

Further he said that last year 160 Chartered Accountants were involved in carrying out the technical marking.

“This year we are expecting to increase the number to 200 Chartered Accountants to further enhance the quality of marking, one report is marked at least by five Chartered Accountants” he said.

“Last year in 2014, we have introduced a new award on integrated reporting and going beyond our expectations some 30 odd companies participated in integrated reporting award category. I must emphasize the fact that though some of the companies titled their awards as integrated they were not really integrated reporting, there is a way to go, many improvements has to be done” he further noted.

(An integrated report is a concise communication about how an organisation’s strategy, governance, performance and prospects lead to the creation of value over the short, medium and long term)

CA Sri Lanka President Arjuna Herath noted that the institute has progressed steadily and they had an amazing journey ensuring world-class financial reporting in this country.

“Today this country has financial reporting standards which are aligned and fully converged with the international financing quality standards. lt is not easy to emulate, there are many countries who haven’t reached that milestone,” he stressed.

Awards will be presented under 25 categories which will include a main winner, and the winners will be announced at the award ceremony which is expected to be held on 3rd of December at the Waters edge.

Colombo Stock Exchange will be on board as the strategic partner and the entries for the competition will close on 10th September 2015.