With the popularity of term 'business sustainability' it discloses that only those organisations ensure long term sustainability, which safeguard rights of all the stakeholders instead of shareholders.
This was stated by Fazal Hussain Ghafoor, FCA, Chief Internal Auditor, Central Depository Company of Pakistan Ltd while sharing his views in a seminar on "internal audit role in modern corporate governance and business sustainability," which was organised by the Southern Regional Committee (SRC) of Institute of Chartered Accountants of Pakistan (ICAP) on Thursday.
He informed the audience that the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) had helped in reshaping role of internal audit to be responsible for evaluating and improving the risk management and governance processes within an organisation. He also apprised the audience of various components of corporate governance and said role of internal audit function becomes meaningful, if train and well-staffed.
He highlighted scandals like Enron and World Com, which resulted into creation of Code of Corporate Governance and Sarbanes Oxley Act in 2002. This resulted in changing internal audit function from voluntary to a compulsory for all listed companies and its reporting line was elevated to Board Audit Committee, he said. He also put light over the importance of environmental issues and explained how ignorance of environment can affect sustainability of operations.
Session Chairman Khurshid Hasan Sabzwari, Partner A.F Ferguson in his speech said internal audit needs to play more strategic role in ensuring that organisations meet their Corporate Governance challenges. Riaz A Rehman Chamdia, Convenor CPD Committee of ICAP thanked the speaker and the session chairman for attending the event.