SEVENTY LIBERIAN BANKERS and Auditors are to participate in a training program in International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). The Training is being sponsored by the African Management Services Company (AMSCO), the Liberia Bankers’ Association (LBA) and the Central Bank of Liberia (CBL) with support from the African Training & Management Services (ATMS) Project Foundation.
All nine banks in Liberia – Access Bank, AFRILAND First Bank, ECOBANK, First International Bank, Global Bank, Guarantee Trust Bank, International Bank, Liberia Bank for Development & Investment and United Bank of Africa and the CBL are to benefit from the training. Auditing firms are also expected to attend and benefit.
IFRS, developed by the London-based International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) for financial accounting and reporting, has become widely mandated, adopted and emulated in and by about 100 countries, most notably are the European Union Member countries, a host of African countries including South Africa and countries in Latin America and Asia. The United States Securities and Exchange Commission has been discussing plans to replace the U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Standards (U.S. GAAP) for U.S. public companies with IFRS. Banks and corporations are to apply the standards in their transactions.
For over two years, the Central Bank of Liberia has mandated Liberian banks to migrate to IFRS. The proposed AMSCO training is designed to assist Liberian Banks pursue that objective. In an audience with the President of Liberia, an AMSCO Delegation committed to take a more active role in building executive and managerial capacity in Liberia. Building IFRS capacity in the financial sector was determined to be vital and urgent and AMSCO took on the challenge.
AMSCO is a UNDP Project, executed by the International Finance Corporation (IFC). It has been supporting the development of Africa’s private sector for some twenty years. The IFRS training in Liberia is supported by the Africa Training & Management Services (ATMS) Foundation, the funding arm of the UNDP ATMS/AMSCO Project. Facilitators of the IFRS Training are experts from KPMG, working in collaboration with Parker & Associates of Liberia.
The training will be conducted in two phases. The duration of each phase is one week. The first phase is for professionals without prior exposure to IFRS and that runs from Monday, June 17 to 21, 2013 and the second phase is for professionals who are knowledgeable about IFRS and that follows in week two, June 24 to 28, 2013. The training takes place at the CBL Training Center at the corner of Carey and Warren Streets in Monrovia.
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