ACCOUNTANTS DO NOT KNOW HOW TO ACCOUNT FOR NATURAL ASSETS: “The risk with the accounting profession is that they would include natural assets in local government financial statements in a way that is neither meaningful nor helpful,” believes Wally Wells, well-known to BC local governments as an Asset Management Master, Mentor and Coach
“People look at asset management as a function, but it is not a function. It is a process, and the process for getting you to Sustainable Service Delivery is asset management. You cannot legislate a process. For this reason, I am really, really, really nervous about the way the accounting profession will try to treat natural assets in a financial statement. Accountants do not know how to deal with the subject of natural asset management. If accountants cannot explain it properly, then inclusion of natural assets in PSAB 3150 is either going to be dismissed in practice and/or done poorly. In my view, that is the bottom-line,” stated Wally Wells.