Dr. Edward A. Kufuor

On April 15, 2015, Dr. Edward Kufuor, the Chairperson of the Division of Business was invited to join a a discussion about “Global Public Private Partnership (PPP) Initiatives in Post 2015: Financing for Development Projects” with delegates consisting of leaders from many countries, dignitaries from the United Nations, executives from investment banks, private and public sector companies and international experts The conference was sponsored by the Permanent Mission of People’s Republic of Bangladesh to the United Nations, New York in collaboration with Global NRB USA Inc. and FICS USA Inc. The conference took place at The United Nations Headquarters, New York.  Some of the notables who attended are:

• Mr. Abul Maal A Muhith, Minister, Ministry of Finance Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh
• President Sam Kutesa, the President of the General Assembly, the United Nations
• Dr. Mahbubul Joarder, Chairman, Global NRB USA Inc., USA, and FICS USA Inc., USA.
• Mr. Tafazzul Karim, President Global NRB Inc., USA, President, FICS USA Inc., USA
• H. E. Mr. Oh Joon, ambassador and Permanent Representative of the Republic of Korea to the UN
• H.E. Dr. A. K. Abdul Momen, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the UN
• Mr. Shahriar Bin Muskhles (Lin), COO, Radio Dhol, Bangladesh
• Dr. William van der Geest, Chief Development Strategy and Policy Analysis Unit Development Policy and Analysis Division, UN-DESA
• Mr. Monirul Hoque, Vice President Global NRB & Investment Bank
• Mr. Sulaiman Anjanee, Chairman, Industrial Promotion & Development Corp
• Mr. Sanjay Chaubey, Esq., President, Indo-American Law Association, NY
• Mr. O’Conner, Chief of the Policy and Analysis Branch UN-DESA
  

  Dr. Edward A. Kufuor

Dr. Kufuor’s topic of discussion was the “Accounting Standard Issues”.  He traced accounting issues since the birth of the modern accounting system in the 15th century to the present.  He about the 1933 Act which empowered the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) to regulate the sale and purchase of financial instruments and also authorizing SEC in the regulation of the accounting standards which led to the creation of the Financial Accounting Standard Board and the creation of the Accounting Codifications.  He discussed the signing of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 by President George Bush and its impact on investors, corporations, accountants and auditors.

Dr. Kufuor further spoke about the joint meeting in Norwalk in 2002 by the two boards, Financial Accounting Standard Board and the International Accounting Standard, which is well known as the Norwalk Accord.  At this meeting, the “boards” decided to jointly develop a high-quality, compatible accounting standards that could be used for both domestic and cross-border financial reporting.  He informed the panel about the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) which was signed in 2006 and updated in 2008 where the board identified projects that were considered to be most in need of improvement in the near term which is also known as the convergence.  The following were the long-term projects that were agreed upon to be improve:

He  discussed the impact which these standards will affect the PPP and PFI initiatives.