By Livinus Ayih (Deputy Student Editor)
Regular financial report has been identified as a vital tool for building and maintaining investors confidence in a business organization.
Delivering the 51st Inaugural Lecture of the University of Jos, a Professor of Accounting and Finance Ambrose Okwoli said the concept of financial reporting recognizes ownership and stewardship, specifying that accounts should be prepared by stewards in a way to assure the owners that their investment is secure.
Okwoli who spoke on “The Place of Ratio in Financial Analysis and Corporate Decision” said the decision making concept extends the stewardship concept further to involve making the reports relevant to decision making by shareholders and investors.
He said shareholders are likely to optimize their investment funds if company reports are capable of predicting performances and conditions, stressing that financial strength is critical to corporate survival and growth as profitability alone cannot be used to appraise a firm’s performance.
Professor Okwoli gave a past mark to most public companies in Nigeria that publish their reports in abridged forms in newspapers and specialized journals for public consumption.
He noted that the practice of financial reporting has been a subject of controversy over the years and is today one of the responsibilities imposed on companies in Nigeria by the Companies and Allied Matters Act, 1990 to report annually to their members and to lodge with the Registrar-General of Corporate Affairs Commission a copy of such a report.
He stated that ratios are used to evaluate the robustness and effectiveness of management policies and failure of management policies is a failure of the entire firm leading to bankruptcy or liquidation.
In his remarks, the Vice Chancellor University of Jos Professor Sonni Tyoden disclosed that University of Jos is the leading institution in Nigeria in terms of the production of inaugural lectures adding that his administration has chaired over twenty three out of the fifty one lectures so far presented.
He urged the incoming Vice Chancellor, Professor Hayward Mafuyai to maintain the momentum and commended Professor Okwoli for doing a thorough work which in his opinion would serve as a resource for accountants and non accountants alike.
The lecture was attended by principal officers, staff and students of the university, as well as students and workers from the Nigerian College of Accountancy, where Okwoli was a former Direcor-General.
