Registrar-Generals-Department-Annual-report-1961-1962 — Page 23

Authorized Auditors Board

48. The Authorized Auditors Board constituted under Section 131A of the Companies Ordinance is composed of ten members, namely, the Registrar of Companies (Chairman), the Accountant General and the Commissioner of Inland Revenue as ex officio members, a Legal Adviser, and six other members appointed by the Governor, of whom five are practising accountants.

49. The Board inquiries into the professional qualifications, experi- ence, competency and character of all applicants for admission to the Authorized List of Auditors kept by the Registrar of Companies under Section 131(3)(a). This List is in two parts, Part I containing the names of persons authorized to audit accounts kept in English, Part II the names of those authorized to audit accounts kept in Chinese. The Board may also sit as a disciplinary tribunal, having power to issue a reprimand or order the removal of the name of an auditor from the List.

50. During the year the Board inquired into and approved the applications of twenty eight auditors and four auditing firms for admis- sion to Part I, and of eighteen auditors and six auditing firms for admission to Part II, of the Authorized List. At the end of the year there were 116 individuals and 32 firms on Part I of the List and 87 individuals and 26 firms on Part II. Of these, 60 individuals and 22 firms were on both Parts.

51. Mr. L. A. BRADDOCK, a Vice President of the Australian Society of Accountants, and Mr. C. W. ANDERSEN, the General Registrar of that Society, visited the Colony in September in the course of a tour of South-East Asia, undertaken in connexion with the Colombo Plan, to make a survey of the facilities available for training accountants. Whilst in the Colony, they called on the Registrar of Companies as Chairman of the Authorized Auditors Board to discuss the position of local students who were then or might thereafter enter on a course of study with Universities, Institutes of Technology, or Technical Colleges in Australia, whose examinations their Society recognized as being of equivalent standard to those of the Society. Their Society was anxious that the Board should accord to the examinations of those Bodies the same recognition that was then accorded to the Society's, and this was shortly afterwards agreed to by the Board.

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