ACCA TO END ITS SATELLITE EXPERIMENT

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Real democracy is not possible at ACCA as members and students are milked to finance exorbitant salaries, pensions, plush offices and trips for unelected directors and officeholders.

Anyone following the antics of ACCA's controllers would know that members are not allowed to directly elect officeholders. CEO is not elected and unlike companies, members cannot vote on executive salaries.  Council elections are rigged as officeholders cast hundreds of votes to ensure that their cronies get in.  Council meeting minutes are not available to members. ACCA also has a history of racist conduct. For example, it has used its magazine to attack non-white members who have then been refused any 'right of reply'. Ahead of the AGM it has leaked  the results of council elections to newspapers to highlight that non-white members are not elected to council. ACCA AGMs are a sham. There is no such thing as "Any Other Business" and  members are prevented from asking any searching questions. Even if they do the leadership ignores them. From 2007, ACCA leadership can increase membership fees by 5% without any AGM resolution or approval from members. ACCA has been criticised by name in the UK House of Commons.

ACCA has no influence on government policymaking in the UK and is making no inroads into China or India. It has been worried that that enlightened overseas members would reduce its growth in emerging economies by developing their own institutional structures . Hong Kong has already reduced the value of ACCA qualifications and now requires ACCA qualification holders to take additional exams. Rather than introducing reforms to make ACCA open and democratic, ACCA leadership has gone for gimmicks.

One of these has been to establish satellite inks to the AGM which is always held in London even though nearly 60% of the membership is outside the UK. In 2005, the first satellite link was established and the AGM was simultaneously opened in London and Hong Kong. In 2006, similar arrangement was made as London and Poland linked up. The Hong LKong and Poland AGMs were packed with 'insiders' and none asked any worthwhile questions. For over twenty years, AABA director Prem Sikka has attended the London AGM and always raised questions about lack of democracy and unaccountability of the ACCA leadership. He raised the same questions again in 2005 and 2006. As usual, the ACCA leadership did not  provide any meaningful answers. Some enlightened members in Hong Kong and Poland also noted this and were struck by the arrogance of the leadership. Many subsequently corresponded with Prem Sikka and have been encouraged to stand for council and try to reform ACCA.

ACCA sought to appease overseas members through cheap gimmicks rather than giving them rights and making the Association accountable.  Despite costing nearly £250,000 such tactics have not worked. Members are not happy with control from London and lack of accountability. So the ACCA is now set to silence its overseas members and end the satellite experiment.

 'Insiders' say that if and when pushed the ACCA officials will say that the experiment  was costly. This is a lame excuse. The latest ACCA accounts (for 2005) show that ACCA had  income of £68.7 million, surplus of over £2 million and assets of over  £45 million.  The real reason is that ACCA is adept at worthless gimmicks and when members start asking worthwhile questions the leadership goes to any length to silence them.