Mr. Hikmat Sleem, Previous President of the LACPA
First Professional Encounter between Al Maaref Students and Mr. Hikmat Sleem, Previous President of the Lebanese Association of Certified Public Accountants
The Faculty of Business Administration at Al Maaref University had a special interactive presentation under the tile, “The Accounting Profession: A Cross-sectional Analysis, Challenges and Future Outlook” by hosting the previous president of the Lebanese Association of Certified Public Accountants, Mr. Hikamt Sleem. The activity took place at 2 pm on Thursday November 23, 2017 at the University campus. Present were the Vice President Prof. Jalal Jomaah, the Vice President for Development and Quality Assurance as well as Dean of the Faculty, Prof. Hussin J. Hejase, the Assistant Dean Dr. Ali El Dirani and Head of the Accounting Department Dr. Hassan Rkein in addition to a large group of instructors, students and representatives of many professional institutions, academics, accountants and auditors.
Dr. Rkein, after hearing the national anthem, greeted the audience in his opening address and delivered a brief insight about the financial situation governing our global current affairs pinpointing the influence of the foreign capitalists whereby such influence lead to serving the financial needs of only 1% of the world population while the rest suffer from the consequences of poverty, debt and scarcity of resources. Consequently, many have lost confidence and are in the look for an alternative system. Further, Dr. Rkein stressed that the current accounting system and its governing international standards are not but an outcome of the capitalist order whose purposes is to produce more profits irrespective of the used means. Therefore, he asserted the need for a critical review as well as the dire need for scientific research to seek for new standards which abide more with the principles of fairness, values and spirituality, especially that the failure caused by the capitalist system is highly apparent in the financial crisis with time and whose consequences still a burden to many countries for the last two decades.
With the aforementioned outlook, Dr. Rkein introduced Mr. Sleem who thanked the University Authorities for the invitation and proceeded with his interactive presentation by stressing to the students among the audience about the importance of being present in such events. He further revisited the accounting profession within the context of a historical timeline dating back to 3600 BC giving credit to the old civilizations of the Pharaohs, the ancient Mesopotamia, and others… then to Europe mentioning the Italian Fra Luca Bartolomeo de Pacioli, an Italian mathematician, Franciscan friar, collaborator with Leonardo da Vinci, and a seminal contributor to the field of Accounting (1494 AC). Later, the French added to the profession until reaching the current days where the American took over and added many of its rules and regulations to the profession.
According to Mr. Sleem, Accounting is an organic science which responds to the needs of the market and the communities including governments, financial markets, stock exchange, etc… He also contended that the Accounting profession includes all layers of authority within the organizations starting with book keepers and moving up to the president. Further, Mr. Sleem offered a detailed exposition of the functions of the profession giving many real life examples adding fun to the presentation and ending in providing details about the operational responsibilities like:
- The Accountant,
- Internal Audit,
- External Audit,
- Managerial Accounting,
- Asset management, and
- Business valuation among many other functions and jobs.
Mr. Sleem stressed to the audience and in particular to the students that these specialties open many choices for them to choose from and it is up to them to seek development to their careers so as to gain more knowledge, skills and competencies to excel in the job market.
This excellent presentation ended with an open discussion with the audience and many professionals present added more to the benefits that the University wanted to its students. Finally, Prof. Hejase presented a closure to the event by providing a brief integrated overview of what Mr. Sleem wanted to say and added more on the challenges awaiting to move ahead amid an environment of fierce competition necessitating that students be highly aware of the opportunities to seek continuous development to their degree and the available opportunities either by seeking professional certification or graduate school.
The event culminated by presenting to Mr. Sleem a token of appreciation from the University, a special plaque for the occasion in the presence of the Vice Presidents, Dr. El Dirani and Dr. Rkein. This event was a successful encounter between professionals and experts of the profession and students, the outcomes of the event added an enrichment and motivation to students to look forward with a positive attitude and high hopes.