The
supervisory role of the Audit Association over auditors’ ethics needed to be
clarified in the Independent Audit bill, lawmakers said yesterday, Nov 19, in a National
Assembly discussion that focused on ethics.

Photo: kiemtoanvn

‘The Audit Association
will be the best way to supervise the ethics of auditors,” said deputy Tran Du
Lich of HCM City.

He suggested making it
a requirement for eligible auditors to be association members, an idea shared by
many other deputies.

Pham Quoc Anh from
southern Dong Nai Province and Nguyen Thi Kim Tien from central Ha Tinh Province
said part of the association’s job should also be to provide professional
training and consultancy to auditors.

Auditing was a special
job characterised by high professional and ethical requirements, said deputy
Nguyen Van Binh of northern Hai Phong City.

“No one has ever been
able to prove that the State management of this job should leave out ethics or
that the quality of ethics can develop on its own,” said Lich.

Many deputies agreed
that the existence of an independent audit company very much depended on human
honesty and prestige rather than its capital.

Therefore, the current
bill is inappropriate in its requirement that general director and directors of
an independent auditing company contribute at least one-tenth of its charter
capital, they said.

This regulation did
not fit the current Enterprise Law either, said Ha Noi’s deputy Pham Thi Loan.

“The Enterprise Law
allows companies to employ someone who is not a shareholder as general director
or director,” she said.

Viet Nam currently has
only 1,800 licensed auditors, too few to audit the country’s 500,000
enterprises.

Archives bill

Deputy Nguyen Duy
Nguyen, northern Hai Duong Province, said the draft Archives Law must include
the records of the People’s Army when the National Assembly resumed its
assessment of the proposed legislation yesterday, Nov 19.

“The People’s Army and
Public Security archives should be added to the bill,” the deputy said.

The law is intended to
strengthen the State management of the nation’s records and eliminate the
shortcomings of the National Archive Ordinance of 2001.

Deputies asked for
clarification of who will be members of the council that will evaluate the
documents to be kept as archives.

They suggested it
include scientists and other experts.

Some asked for the
regulation of the council’s tasks, especially those of its chairman.

The use of a dedicated
font, or typeface, in the creation of the archives is expected to be
strengthened with the introduction of the law that is scheduled to be approved
at the next and last sittings of the 11th National Assembly next year.

The bill stipulates
the use of two fonts - one dedicated to the Party and the other, the State.

Typefaces

A number of deputies
suggested a single national archive font composed of Party and State typefaces.

But others asked that
the two be kept separate as proscribed in the bill.

Many deputies
sup-ported the socialisation of the archives but worried about the possibility
of trading documents that were State secrets if the regulations governing their
management was not sufficiently strict.

They also asked which
of the archive services should be socialised, especially the conditions applying
to individuals and organisations providing archive services.

Deputies argued that
transparent and clear regulations would ensure the archives were effectively
secured and used.

Any “roadmap” for the
socialisation of the archives should be regulated as this would help the service
match the country’s socio-economic development, they said.

VietNamNet/Viet
Nam News