ACCA members turn against senior officers

Angry members of the Association of Certified Chartered Accountants are calling for an extraordinary general meeting to force out senior officers. Led by former ACCA council member Anthony Thomas, members' signatures are being collected in an attempt to force a vote on a motion to set up an independent commission "to examine all aspects of the corporate governance of the association, including ... matters concerning the election of council, its officers and the role and supervision of the chief executive".

Mr Thomas said he has 60-70 of the 100 signatures required to force the meeting. Since last week's list of problems, yet more issues have been raised:

ACCA vice-president Moyra Kedslie took early retirement from Hull University last week, less than a week after Whistleblowers revealed that she had joined the ACCA hierachy shortly after being forced to resign as head of Hull's school of accounting, business and finance amid a management "crisis".

Earlier this summer, 28 MPs signed a parliamentary early-day motion that condemned ACCA as "unfit to be a regulatory body" and alleged that it had failed "to function in an open, democratic and accountable manner".

In 1996, ACCA vice-president Jim Waits was forced to step down after he publicly suggested that Essex University accounting professor Prem Sikka was a "wanker". Professor Sikka, he suggested, should set up his own body called the "World Association of Non-Chartered Certified Accountants".

Letters, page17