Commercial Bank and Hayleys share top award at Chartered Accountants’ Annual Report Awards 2008

Commercial Bank of Ceylon PLC and Hayleys PLC jointly shared the Gold Award for ‘Excellence in Annual Financial Reporting’ at the Annual Report Awards presented by the ICASL.

Diesel and Motor Engineering PLC clinched Gold Awards in both the ‘Corporate Governance Disclosures’ and ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’, categories while Union Assurance PLC won the Gold Award in the ‘Management Commentary’ category.                       The Chartered Accountants Annual Report Awards is a much looked forward to and prestigious event in Sri Lanka’s annual corporate calendar since 1964. It recognizes and honours those organisations which have achieved excellence in annual reporting. Nearly 60 awards were presented in special categories, with a winner and runner-up in each category. The awards are open to every organisation that produces an annual report, and, this year, attracted a large number of entries ranging from large multinational companies to small community groups.

Among the Silver and Bronze award winners were:- Union Assurance PLC (Silver) and John Keells Holdings PLC (Bronze) in the ‘Excellence in Annual Financial Reporting’ - Hatton National Bank PLC (Silver) and Union Assurance PLC (Bronze) in the ‘Corporate Governance Disclosures’ category,- Union Assurance PLC (Silver) and Hatton National Bank PLC (Bronze) in the ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’ category, - Commercial Bank of Ceylon PLC and Hayleys PLC (joint Silver) and Bank of Ceylon and Diesel and Motor Engineering PLC (joint Bronze) in the ‘Management Commentary’ category.

Chairman of the Annual Report Awards Committee Lasantha Wickremasinghe said that this annual competition has helped Corporates to significantly improve compliance. “Over the years it has had a significant influence on Corporates to disclose more information on a voluntary basis. The Corporates also responded well by adding more and more disclosures in their reports on a voluntary basis. As a result, when the compliance requirements started growing, and by the time it became a statutory obligation, Corporates found themselves complying with the regulatory framework without an additional effort”, he added.

Judges have taken into account the size, complexity and sophistication of each entrant as well as the resources available. Their Annual Reports were evaluated against established criteria. These however do not include actual financial position or actual financial or non-financial performance of an organisation.Winners were judged and selected on their ability to clearly communicate their objectives, highlights, performance, governance and social responsibility to the intended audience. All competitors went through an initial selection process by a team of senior Chartered Accountants.

Those short listed were then subjected to a much broader review by a panel of judges who are well respected in the industry and the society. 

The objectives of the Chartered Accountants Annual Report Awards are to promote better communication to stake holders particularly through the publication by the organisation, of informative annual reports, effective communication of financial and business information, and, the compliance with legislative requirements and generally accepted accounting practices.President of the ICASL Nishan Fernando said, “While having financial reporting standards also in place to fall in line with the regulatory demands in the world, I believe the Chartered Accountants have taken proactive steps to preserve relevant and useful reporting to the stakeholders well before IFAC scientifically identified those issues. As a professional Institute it is a challenge for us to assist the Corporates in this country to keep pace with the developments that are taking place in rest of the world. We also have the challenge of developing the skills of our members to successfully take up these challenges. I am confident that the Institute could stand up to these challenges and already we have taken many initiatives in this direction. I assure all corporate CEOs that our members will be in a position to take up these new challenges.”