The Ministry for Finance refers to the editorial ‘When ethics watchdogs fail to bark’ (May 4), reiterating allegations made in the article titled ‘Auditing regulator in limbo for six months’ published on April 21, both of which were repeated on timesofmalta.com.

Contrary to what has been erroneously alleged in the Times of Malta, at no time did the Quality Assurance Unit responsible for carrying out inspections on auditors and audit firms cease its operations. Neither was it ever left unconstituted for one reason or other.

The Accountancy Board, on the other hand, had to be reconstituted following the enactment in February 2016 of amendments to the Accountancy Profession Act Cap 281. This was required to bring into force the relevant provisions of the new EU directive on statutory audits.

This change required that the Accountancy Board be made up solely of non-practitioners to ensure the independence of the Accountancy Board from the audit profession.

The setting up of the new Accountancy Board was announced once all the statutory nominations from a number of institutions were received by the Ministry for Finance.

The Ministry for Finance issued the above explanation through a press release on April 26 and it is disappointing to see that this information was not communicated to the esteemed readership of the Times of Malta as well as the newspaper persisting in its erroneous reporting on the matter.

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