Sri Lankan companies strong contenders at SAFA Awards

RECOGNITION: The supremacy of Sri Lankan corporates at the annual Best Presented Accounts Awards judged and conferred by the South Asian Federation of Accountants (SAFA) is expected to continue this year, with the 2005 annual reports of some of the country's leading companies in contention in the seven awards categories.

A new award for Corporate Governance, to be presented by SAFA for the first time this year, will be one of the highlights at the awards ceremony to be held during the latter part of the year, SAFA Vice President and Chairman of the Centre of Excellence for the Best Presented Accounts Award Indrajith Fernando said.

Judging for the SAFA awards, the most prestigious accolade for financial reporting in the region, begins in August and involves the scrutiny of annual reports nominated by the apex accounting bodies in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka. The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka (ICASL), is in the process of submitting the top two annual reports of local companies and organisations under the seven categories to SAFA for this year's round of judging.

The nominees are selected from the winners of the annual report competition conducted by the ICASL.

"Each year, the number of contenders and the quality of the annual reports submitted for judging improves as the region makes progress in harmonising, its accounting practices and standards with International Financial Reporting Standards," SAFA President Sunil Goyal said.

"Sri Lanka has been in the forefront of this progress, and Sri Lankan companies have taken about 90 per cent of the awards presented to date," Fernando added.

One consistent winner of the SAFA Best Presented Accounts Awards has been the Commercial Bank of Ceylon, Sri Lanka's benchmark private sector bank, which has won the top award in the Financial/Banking category for the past four years, and was adjudged the overall winner across all categories last year.