07. October 2014.
Today, Business Support Network has hosted a panel titled ’How to Reduce Frauds and Protect Investors and Creditors, with a Special Emphasis on the Accounting Law and Quality of Financial Reporting in Serbia’, organized with the aim to draw the attention to necessary changes in the present regulations so as to make the state more efficient in preventing and punishing of frequent frauds done towards the conscientious companies and investors in Serbia.
It has been unanimously concluded at the conference attended by the businessmen and representatives of professional public (Association of Accountants and Auditors of Serbia, Association of Accounting Services Providers, small and medium-sized companies, consultants, media...), that reforms of the legislation are necessary, as emphasized by Dušan Milutinović, Director of Finances of Hemofarm, slow and inefficient prosecution of the persons charged with frauds and abuses in economy, i.e. legal insecurity and too extensive bureaucracy represent an obstacle for revitalization of national economy, and at the same time also a stumbling stone both for domestic businessmen and for investors.
’To preserve and accelerate the reproductive cycle of the economy, it is necessary to additionally shorten the statutory payment deadlines and punish non-compliance with them more rigorously. In this way, losses of both the businessmen and the state will be diminished. Also, strict compliance with the laws and procedures is necessary, which means that the responsible persons for inaccurate financial statements should be strictly punished. It is necessary to have a public data base of the accused individuals and legal entities evading the payment as a prevention action because we are often witnessing that the representatives of the companies being in bankruptcy or the accounts of which have been frozen for a long time, found new companies with the same activity’, said Dušan Milutinović at the panel discussion, emphasizing that in practice, the punishments for auditors signing the falsified financial statements are rare, or relatively small ones.
Dušan Milutinović, reminded that STADA, the greatest German investor in Serbia, also faced the problems with collection of receivables although, on the other part, they have regularly settled all their liabilities to the state and employees and continued to invest in Hemofarm in order to maintain the continuity of regular supply of domestic market with necessary medicines.
