By Richard Johnstone in Rome | 12 November 2014

Opaque government accounting represents one of the largest risks to the global economic recovery, the World Congress of Accountants has been told.

Speaking to the conference today in a session on enhancing government transparency and accountability, Ian Ball, the chair of CIPFA International, said the lessons from the financial and sovereign debt crisis have not been learnt.

He highlighted the fact that application of accountancy best practice to government balance sheets, such as International Public Sector Accounting Standards, had been resisted by some of the larger economies.

Ball called on governments around the world to act now to adopt accrual accounting and international accounting standards or face the potential economic consequences from an unclear fiscal position in a future crisis.

‘With public sector spending making up around one third of the global economy it is unacceptable that many governments can't demonstrate what they spend and what assets they have to a basic level expected of any business,’ he said.

‘Though governments are fond of boasting about their levels of economic growth, the truth is that it is all built upon sand unless they can properly account for how they run their public finances.’

Ball’s comments come after Thomas Müller-Marqués Berger, EY’s global leader for international public sector accounting and a member of the IPSAS Board, told Public Finance International that Germany should do more to boost the implementation of IPSAS in Europe. 

• Ball was awarded the IFAC Gold Service Award recognising his outstanding individual contributions to the global accountancy profession.

Read his article in the WCOA edition of Public FInance International magazine here.