ACCA President’s four page letter accompanying the EGM papers is full of
hot air. It has little substance. We  urge ACCA members to SUPPORT THE EGM RESOLUTION and draw attention to a number of issues.

1. ACCA President draws attention to the number of ACCA members who requisitioned the EGM. The intention is to intimidate and persuade ACCA members to believe that the EGM does not have widespread support.
 
 This gesture  is irrelevant as EGM has been called in accordance with ACCA bye-laws which requires the signatures of  100 fully paid-up members to call an EGM. ACCA members would note that in 1995 ACCA council called an EGM to abandon the title ACCA. They did not  secure even one signature from ordinary members for the EGM. The EGM cost £600,000 and was a failure as eventually the Privy Council rejected the application. ACCA has failed to explain this failure.
 
 On one hand the ACCA claims that it is a global body, whilst on the other hand the President identifies the number of signatories from the UK, Malaysia and Gibraltar. The intention is presumably to fuel antagonisms amongst members.
 
2. ACCA President refers to the professionalism of ACCA officials. He remains silence on the ACCA’s failure to tell members anything about officeholders.
 
 Why have ACCA members not been told anything about the revelations relating to
 ACCA Deputy President?
 
 ACCA Vice-President has virtually no job. Is this an example of a person immersed in practical affairs leading an accountancy body?
 
 If the officials are so professional then why are members not permitted to vote on the chief executive’s salary?
 
3. ACCA President continues to talk about moving “forward”. Let us look at this.
 
 In the UK (and many other countries), leaders of political parties and directly elected by the members, trade union leaders and directly elected by their members, major cities such as London are to elect Mayors. In contrast, no ACCA leader is directly elected by members. Unlike other professional bodies, ACCA does not admit its members to Council meetings or give them any sight of agenda papers or minutes. Why? ACCA does not owe a ‘duty of care’ to its members. Why?  Why is the ACCA in-house magazine censored? ACCA officeholders take their spouses and even mistresses on overseas trips with them. The cost of this is some £50,000 per year, but ACCA members are never told. Why?
 
 The question is why is the ACCA rooted in the past?
 
4. Anthony Thomas has already stated that he made the first move to meet ACCA President which was declined. If ACCA wishes to dispute this it should publish the full correspondence.
 
5. President complains that Thomas spoke to the UK media. Why should he not? Like other UK citizens he has the fundamental human right to express his views. As ACCA denied him any access to the in-house magazine, this left him with few choices.
 
6. We are sure that ACCA qualification is highly regarded and that members work hard to promote it into a ‘global’ qualification. However, ACCA President has failed to explain the incompetence of ACCA officials in securing any recognition of their qualification in countries such as the USA and Canada - two of the largest economies in the world. ACCA members have not been invited to have any input into the new syllabus. The committee for restructuring the syllabus was under the chairmanship of a person whose own employers questioned her academic judgement.
 
7. ACCA members would welcome the IT achievements but why are they not being used to facilitate dialogue with members. Other accountancy bodies (e.g. CIMA) have a real-time discussion forum, but not ACCA. Indeed, ACCA does not tolerate any dissent and has already pulled-the plug on the discussion from its Malaysian site.
 
 Given the success of the internet site and IT, John Brockwell fails to explain why the number of  ACCA bureaucrats keeps on rising. Where are the financial savings?
 
8. Brockwell’s idea of ‘the highest standards of corporate governance’ is that ACCA publishes some Codes. He ignores the absence of elections, the closed council and rigged voting system. The ACCA Code of Conduct  for Council members is really a ‘gagging order’. It violates the European Convention of Human Rights.
 
9.  ACCA President refers to some ‘independent review of ACCA’s management and governance structures’. However, he is silent on a number of issues:
 
Who conducted this and when? Who are these independent experts? Did Brockwell, Rose and the gang hire them, pay them and fix their terms of reference? If so, they were hardly independent? Why were ACCA members not invited to have an input. Why has the report not been published?