There is a shortage of Maldivian accountants in the country, said Fayyaz Ismail, Minister of Economic Development.
He said this while speaking at the ceremony held to launch the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Maldives’ (CA) website and logo. He said that businesses and the government needed professional accountants, but there were not that many Maldivians with the necessary training.
There would be more Maldivians who would be trained in accountancy in the coming three years, said Fayyaz.
Minister Fayyaz said that the government wished to work with CA to remove obstacles to seeking training in accountancy, and to make accounting a more familiar and popular field among people.
Speaking at the ceremony, the Vice President of CA, Hassan Mohamed, even though there were many foreigners working as auditors in the country, the work to train more Maldivians was underway. He said in future, they would only issue auditor licenses to Maldivians.
Hassan also said that regulations had been put into place to enforce that 50% of all staff at local audit firms be Maldivian citizens.
A survey conducted by CA shows that about 4,500 foreigners work as auditors in the Maldives. Many resorts, when they announce vacancies for accountant jobs, they restrict the candidates to foreigners, said Hassan.