INTRODUCTION

Mr. Mushtaq Ahmed Madraswala is The Chief Executive Of Mushtaq Ahmed Management Consultants, which develops computerized accounting system for conversion and streamlining of financial accounts of Private Limited Companies And Proprietorship Accounts along with outsourcing Internal Audit/Compliance Functions of GSK for Business Analysis and SAP for distribution operations all over Pakistan. He possess 29 years of diversified experience in managing, reporting and system development for control functions of banking and finance with leading financial institutions. He is the visiting faculty member at University of Karachi for subjects of Accounting, Banking, Cost And Management Accounting, Financial Appraisal and Financial Institutions as well as a Practising Member Of ICMAP since 2001. He also represented Institute Of Corporate Secretaries of Pakistan (ICSP) in India as Vice President in a Conference held At Jaipur, 2007


KalPoint.com (KPDC): Please share a little about your life, education and family?

Mr. Mushtaq Ahmed Madraswala (MAM):

LIFE:-

In our system the mediocre families (self made) wish to get something secured for the upcoming generations and as my father is a retired banker, having good experience of banking industry he was desirous that I should try to be in the same profession (banking) so I decided to follow his steps. But I had my own educational aims in my mind, from the very beginning I wanted to become a GD Pilot and I was almost there, but I had strict opposition from my family on this, so I had to back out. I then decided to focus on the commerce field and started my job in a paint company in 1978 and after 2 years I resigned from there as an accountant, and joined Habib Bank Limited, and then a Charted Accountant firm as a consultant. I resigned in 2001 as a Director and till date am working as a Management Consultant.

FAIMLY:

I have two daughters and a son; the elder daughter is in Karachi Grammar School in her final 'A’ level the other daughter is in DHA doing 'O’ level, while my son is in his early stages of 'O’ level from DHA.


KPDC: What are the vision and mission of Consultancy services and your best experience?

MAM: The consultancy services basically scope's the system designing the appropriate credentials required in compliance with regulatory and good governance practices of taxation, wealth strengthening, management decision and curriculum for stakeholders.

The core line of consultancy activity is Development Of :

Management and Accounting System, MIS required for internal and external usage, Tax Flows and Procedures, the best experience is one of the major financial institutions where we are maintaining the best practices developed during the outsourced period.


KPDC: How long have you been associated with Institute of Cost & Management Accountant of Pakistan and what are your achievements for ICMAP?

MAM: I have been associated with ICMAP since 1982, when I was first enrolled as a student; I qualified as CMA in 1992, the period was lengthened because of my concentration on my banking career, after qualifying from ICMAP I became its Associate/Fellow Member and then Committee Member for Education and Continuing Professional Education. I also became the member of Karachi Branch Council (KBC) of ICMAP and only after 2 tenures (1 year) of being a KBC member; I became the Chairman of KBC, which I voluntarily left, as I felt it was a place for a youngster to lead. Since 2002, I am associated with the Institute in capacity of a volunteer for well being in Education, professional training and as national councils' committee member where I give my suggestions and volunteer services if and when needed.

With regard to my contribution to ICMAP, I have given the concept of IT based (internet based) study/reference resources for students and members. The beginning was at ICMAP (Library) at Head office. I initiated the idea of getting global village's knowledge and study material with a single click by introducing the Digital Library System through Internet and Networking with limited resources, and now the Information & Communication Technology (ICT) culture has grown in the campus by leaps and bounds as we now have sufficient terminals.


KPDC: Being involved in teaching, do you think our institutes have been able to maintain the standards of education alongside building the character of our youth?

MAM: Well, I have also been teaching at Karachi University,(KU) as visiting faculty in Master's program (Evening). Although KU is trying its best to provide the atmosphere and status which I would like to have but I am there only because the students need me. When I started teaching there, I told the students that they are “Mujahid” because after spending 8 to 10 hours in their offices, they take their writing pads and run towards their institutes to seek knowledge. I am simply helping them by providing the knowledge in search of which they are. The concern is that, we lack practical knowledge due to shortcoming of basic infrastructure to provide students the practical knowledge. I must admit here that I am exceedingly impressed with the setup, professionalism and revolutionary vision of Information Technology here, I also believe in using technology, so the student who come to me with common queries, I reply them with by introducing URL’s link, because I strongly believe in giving our students the knowledge globally, instead of relying on some specific books, so in a way our institutions are fulfilling their obligations in building the character of youth but still there is a lot to done in this regard.


KPDC: We see a vast difference in caliber when we compare a CA student with an ICMA student, what is the reason for that and do you think the student getting both the qualifications are more successful?

MAM: The main reason is the scope of study, the scope of both qualifications is poles apart. Actually at ICMA students are trained as Executors for system running for preparation of financials, meaning that ICMAP's students pass through the whole process before arriving to final figures in financials, while on the other hand, Charted Accountants are trained for internationally accepted principles of auditing the financials. They rely on different techniques such as sampling etc., and they have good business communication skills. CMAS' don’t rely on techniques, as they work thoroughly on each and every part of accounting procedure, in this way CMAS are developers of financials, while CAs are trained to assess the work done for forming an opinion on the accounting practices adopted for developing the financials of organization. But now this bridge has been washed out by automation and to your second half of the question, definitely if a student is able to do both CA and ICMA, he would be in a more advantageous position then any other as then he would be able to get those techniques and knowledge, which he can’t get while doing CA or ICMA individually for that matter.


KPDC: To what an extent the training, workshops and skill development programs bring improvements in an individual?

MAM: Definitely, they are very much helpful in enhancing the skills and abilities of professionals; I have also been the Training Director for bankers at Habib Bank Limited. The only dilemma I see is that here people are bit afraid of going through training as they believe that after undergoing a training program or skills development workshops, they may have to leave their seat and they may be asked to switch to another job, which they don’t want, but in all I must say training and workshops certainly help in bringing out the hidden qualities that a professional possess, which are undiscovered till that time.
KPDC: Having years of experience in handling corporate affairs, do you think our national organizations have been able to emphasize over sharing their experiences for earning mutual benefits?
MAM: They haven’t been able to do this thing and If it happens then it would be a very positive step, not only for mutual benefits of our national organizations but also for the country as a whole, but normally we have very concealed documentation and information is never shared and same is the case in countries like India, Srilanka and in our other neighboring countries, as they never incline towards exchanging relevant documents to study the system, but we must have confidence in each other and this is the way by which we can work better for the country as a unit.


KPDC: Teachers acts as an inspiration to motivate students towards studies, so are you satisfied with the role of teachers in encouraging students towards education?

MAM: I firmly agree that the role of a teacher contributes a great deal in flourishing a good student but I feel some teachers have commercialized the profession of teaching and in this way students are deprived of what they require. I don’t try to commercialize with this field, I have a good experience of teaching Financial Management in Karachi University and if I find a student is on merit and if he comes to me, I am glad to take some time out to resolve his problems because students have got their own choices and teachers have got their own choices and options. I was also the Convener of Students Committee and I strongly believe that while teaching our deliberation level should be the same to those students who try to interrogate our qualification and status, as it is to our other students because a teacher should be sharp enough to satisfy each and every query of students and he should be master of every thing, he should also be smart enough to craft eagerness among his students to attend his class, because if he is very strict on students on matters such as attendance and other stuff, he is actually blackmailing the students and undoubtedly it won’t work in creating a working relationship between a student and a teacher which is very important because if a student and a teacher can jet together well on a wavelength desirable to both, then it becomes a lethal combination, so I tell my students that they can get the required status in the subject and this is no big issue, but the real test comes when they want to gain merit, this is not matriculation and intermediate where some students are forced to attend the class. I told my students that since they are in the class, so I don’t need any certificate proving their eagerness towards education. I try to give them the basic knowledge; even there were some students of mine, who couldn’t type website links. I gave them my laptop and in this way persuaded them to acquire knowledge through the means of IT because internet contains abundant knowledge. The site of State Bank of Pakistan is a global site and while teaching chapters such as Financial Institution, I told my students to get the information on topics such as Risk Management & Money Market etc from there, instead of giving them the names of different foreign books, since we are having knowledge on our resources such as SBP’s site, which is a helpful site for every commerce student to keep themselves updated on issues relating to their field, hence we don’t require foreign sources for obtaining the same data from there.


KPDC: When a fresh graduate enters into the professional field, he finds a major difference in the accounting techniques taught and applied practically, Why is that?

MAM: The logical thing behind this confusion is that the books that are taught in our academies, starts on three column journal entries and finishes on four column journal entries. So in our institutions no concept of accounting procedures and working is giving and the students are informed about specific pattern of accounting, or examination pattern. I must call it incomplete knowledge because when they go in a sophisticated accounting atmosphere, where they are assigned the task of Payroll Accounting or Receivable/Payable Accounting, they find it dissimilar to what they practiced in colleges, so in other words there accounting is applied on major grounds and it is not restricted to some specific patterns and this is where the real assessment of a candidate starts and this is the field where we don’t want to invest as students, so it is just the matter of taking accounting as a broad concept and not just a 3 hour paper subject.


KPDC: These days many institutes offer short period management courses. Do you think these courses are competent enough to meet challenges of the professional environment?

MAM: I think in this regard some institutions are doing a marvelous job. I must take the name of Institute of Business Administration (IBA) and Institute of Bankers Pakistan (IBP) here. They offer good short period management courses such as Financial Analysis, Retail Management etc., and one should apply for it and after its completion one must again take the same course after some period so that he can be able to absorb the most from that course or subject. Investing on your own is very essential in today’s era and we should set our aims high, we shouldn’t be content by becoming an ordinary accountant, I have always asked my students, why aren’t they manager of accounts, so we must set our goals on big achievements and plan our progress towards that destination steadily through our hard work and passion.


KPDC: You have also been engaged actively in rendering social services for your community, Please share your experience on this matter.

MAM: As I belong from the Memon community, which is very famous for its social services, because we believe in community services a lot. I am the President of Cutchi Memon Jamaat,(Saddar) when I took over, there was a scheme of giving T.V, Fridge, Washing Machine etc, that was used for dowry, with the concept that this would be the best gift to be given to your daughter when she is going into a new house and in this scheme the default rate was very alarming. It was a very big structure, but soon after I took over, I stopped them from giving these type of things because I feel conveyance is the most major issue these days, because if you are spending Rs:50 a day on conveyance, then you are spending Rs:1500. p.m. with no time efficiency and the uneasiness caused during this is a separate matter. So I started to give people motorcycle of Rs:50,000/= to those who have attained 18 years of age and have driving licenses, even I gave them the money for helmet but kept documents of those vehicles and try to arrange scholarships also for managing the career development programs. Hence in this way after 18 months, the documents of vehicle are with them, I recently made 2 draws in 1 year and am planning for 3rd in the next financial year despite of a limited fund but this scheme is having a very successful impact.


KPDC: What message would you convey for the youngsters and the Netizens around the world through our website?

MAM: Our youngsters are our future and I am very much hopeful for them. My message for them is, that they must keep faith in their capabilities and should believe that they can achieve any feat in the world, because the day they will loose their confidence, people will start charging at them, and since now it is the era of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), the things are totally changed. In our era we had to go to IT department, to get some information but today in every field, every professional is sitting on a terminal and access to data is no issue now, so through utilizing the available resources our youngsters can do any wonders and most importantly, I would like to say that, in attainment of knowledge, don’t let hesitation or shyness overcome them and be truthful. I remember that when I was interviewed, I was asked that do you know computers. I replied that till my today’s interview, I didn’t know but after 3 days, I will.

So believe in yourself and put forward your best efforts.

Question: Apart from External Auditing procedures, how important is the role of internal auditing?
(Faraz Soomro, London)

MAM: In Pakistan there is a Structured Audit System which is mandatory for corporate structure, where we are having capital structure i.e. Public Limited Companies, and if they are doing a sole private business, in which a person works with his own capital, then it is on his own will that he adopts an internal or external audit, because he does not have to answer anybody except himself, but when he goes with his profile to financial institutions for loans, then in that case the third party opinion counts, and that is where auditing plays a significant role that how strictly or regulatory that person was following internal auditing procedures, so I think for a country like Pakistan the role that Internal Auditing plays, counts a great deal, so there should also be a mandatory and proper internal auditing system.


Question: Being consultant and member of ICMAP, do they think our financial institutions have been able to maintain the standards and in which areas do they still find some shortfalls?
(Shahneela Ahmed, Karachi)

MAM: This question is related to efficiency and not to corporate structure,

See if a President or CEO of an organization is dynamic then he can project his company in a far better way. The financial institutions are regulated through central bank and as central bank is very much concerned in maintaining world class standards, the financial institutions are abiding the Prudential Regulations. The regulations listed in Prudential Regulations are good enough for best standard banking.

The area of shortfall is a customer who is not prepared to help the financial institutions to work with all the required standards.


Question: What can a management consultancy firm do in upgrading the overall performance of an organization?
(Sabir Ali, Kualalumpur)

MAM: Management Consultancy Firm helps organizations in having a documented structure. In Pakistan most of our organizations lack a good documented structure, For Example we have seen that if elder of any family dies incidentally, no body knows what he has left and where he has invested, some times a bit is recovered and some times all is lost, so basically Management Consultancy Firm help organizations as an outsourced partner to have a proper documentation and in this way they can say the core activity is developing documented system for organizations.


KPDC: Thank you so much for being here and enlightening us with your thoughts. C U on Net.

MAM: I also enjoyed being here. C U On Net 2.


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