Recently I met a group of auditors who were involved in preparing the half yearly accounts of our organization. Since they had to meet a dead line they were working almost 18 hours a day I guess. When I came to office at 8.30 in the morning they were there. I worked late for couple of days to finish some of my work. When I left office it was around 2.00AM next day. I thought everyone has gone home. But there were lights on at a meeting room, to see these youngsters were still working. This happened couple of days. It was very surprising to see even girls worked in this team at that time. One day I felt like having a chat with them.
The group consists of 10 junior staff and 1 senior guy. I had a chat with them while having dinner. I asked them how much over time are they receiving and what their salary scales are. I knew the job they were doing is extremely difficult. It needs very high level of understanding of accounting as well as the knowledge on that specific business. More than that they had the access to very confidential information of the company. I got to know that most of them were university graduates. Some of them were CIMA qualified. All of them were following the exams of Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka. With so much qualifications and talents, I guessed they must be earning thumping amount of salaries.
Guess. Just guess… The senior guy in that team gets only Rs.4,500 per month and there's nothing call "over time fees". He was double qualified and facing his final 1 examination of his 3rd professional qualification. First I thought he was kidding. I asked him whether I asked a wrong question. He smiled and said “no I'm not joking". I asked him is it only for him or is it the same for others who are in the same level. Then he said, it is the normal standard salary levels of any audit firm in Sri Lanka. I called one of my friends who is in another country working for this globally recognized audit firm to see how is their salary schemes. He confirmed me that an auditor with such qualification would get at least $2,000 + other benefits for the same position. I was shocked. It’s the same company, same talent. Same work. I agree you can't pay $2,000 per month in an economy such as Sri Lanka. But can you imagine earning Rs 4,500?
I asked the young auditor, why do you work in this company? Why? What motivates you? Are you enjoying doing voluntary work? Because they knew how large their audit is fees and they don't get even 1% of the fees the company owners earn. I can understand if they were uneducated or people who are with just paper qualifications which cannot perform any work. But these people actually work hard. They have so many capabilities. I pointed him some of the multi nationals in Sri Lanka which pays about 20 times higher salary than what he earns now and I asked him why he will not join those companies. 
Then only I understood the real reason behind this exploitation. Institute of Chartered accountants has drawn the guide lines for their students. If they are to face their final level exams they have to have 4 years experience. But they can't work in any company to get this experience. It has to be an approved company by the Institute. Most of the approved companies are audit firms. There are few other companies. But they recruit only few people a year, therefore most students don't have any option than joining an audit firm. Best part is they have to sign an agreement with the firm for 2 or 4 years saying they will not leave the company. If they leave they have to start their training from the beginning at another firm. Therefore they bear all the pain, all the sufferings happening inside these hidden organizations. It was really sad. I asked him why that Institute is having such ridiculous guide lines? Then they told me, people who are heads of this Chartered Institute are the partners of audit firms. That speaks all about it.
People, please be informed. Please know about these organizations. I know we can't do anything about them. I have heard so much about exploitation of labor in Sri Lanka. Recently i saw a salary sheet of a worker who is involved in a strike. If you are reading news papers daily you might have remember this. His monthly salary was more than 100,000/= (1 lac). But never heard any sort of organization fight for the rights of these auditors. I personally hate strikes and other sorts of nasty work. Therefore that’s not my recommendation. But to be honest it’s very frustrating for me to listen to their stories. I can imagine how frustrated it is for them.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Who gets the lowest salary in our country?
Posted by Fly ball at 10:06 PM
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9 comments:
interesting. accounting gradutates get paid quite high starting salaries in Australia - probably around A$4k to 6k a month with the right qualifications. they actually can't find enough accountants here because all the brighties go to work in investment banks and the like.
4500 rupees in unbelievable. i pretty much got more than twice that as my monthly allowance when i was 15. my friends who work for ngos in sri lanka may easily earn 3-4 times that a day.
i think the reason is probably that they can't speak good english, haven't been to the "proper" schools or don't have the right social connections. heck if i were an employer in sl, i'd discriminate against them too. life is so unfair in sri lanka for ordinary sinhalese. wouldn't be surprised if they take up arms again. glad i'm not there.
This is sad - but true. I don't see why they do not speak up. From what i hear, the audit firm partners keep on rotating their vehicles every three months (in sri lanka). Surely, they can share some of the profit? Hotel's share the service charge.
An argument for paying low salaries is that this is "training". but give me a break, how can one, especially one who is qualified, live on such a salary - particularly when they are young.they also like to do things, which cost money.
Have a few accounting friends who have audit experience. Must ask them what they think about this. As far as i can remember, they took the low pay - but hey, they had sufficiently wealthy parents - so they didn't mind it.
To comment on something just_mal mentioned.. I know LOT of people who are from the best schools of Sri Lanka and who are extremely fluent in English working for the same salary in those companies. It's very sad that they don't have much choice to get through the chartered accountants examinations.
Hey ten years ago I was paid only 300/- a month. AFter three years of increments I was getting 1000/- the guys today are much, much better off, and I think quite fairly paid.
In my fathers day it was really unfair. one had to PAY The audit firm a sum to take one on as a trainee. Over the 4 years of training, the sum a small allowance was paid to the trainee which (I am told) equated to the sum paid intially. Basically, one worked for free, in order to get the training. That was unfair.
I see a great risk for other companies which give projects to the audit firms like this. Since all the auditors get a very high level of access to the most confidential information in the company, and since they get a very low salary. I think there is a possibility of these information going in to wrong hands. Therefore I suggest that any company that hires services from an audit firm like this should consider the salaries of the auditors who work for that audit, basically the profile of the people who are getting access to these information.
I know even here at certain places people get very high salary. For example in call centers here even teenagers with only O/L gets a salary around RS 15,000 per month. Most of the organizations are like that. Some of the qualified accountants who are working in some sectors such Apparel & BPO gets around 5-6 lacks per month.
The reason is not these auditors can’t speak English. It’s the "STANDARD salary" recommended for auditors by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of this country. Normally the professional Institutions in other countries stand against companies if their students get lower salaries. But here it’s different. I do not know much about others. But if I tell you the content of the audit team who work here, there is one girl who is a daughter of one of the well known business man in the country. Another boy is the son of the chairman of one of the main groups of business in this country. These two speak very good English and obviously from a good back ground. Very talented. Others are basically from average families. Most of them have the Accountancy degree from University of Sri Jayawardhanapura. They have studied their Bsc in English. They have done their professional exams in English. It’s true that they could not speak Shakespeare Language. But they do speak in English. Most of the times I have seen them sitting around in our finance managers table & arguing with him on interpretation and application of some of the accounting standards with regards to our business. All these discussion take place in English. So with confidence I can say they are able to do any work in English. They produce the audit reports in English. It’s prepared fully by these youngsters. I have never seen their manager coming to supervise them. But all of these juniors get the same salary & it’s lower than their senior's salary which I mentioned here.
I checked couple of related laws to find out whether there's a approved lowest salary scheme in Sri Lanka like in other countries. It’s not. Those laws are too vague & complex. You can use many loop holes and do whatever you want. What audit firm partners seem to do is, they categories these employees as trainees. (Mind you even the supervisors are called trainees. But these trainees do their whole business. Only managers & executives are permanent staff) . Partners have told them they are getting wages, not salaries. I'm sure being auditors, they know all the commercial laws and labor laws. But due to this and due to the hard restrictions from Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka, they remain silence. I asked the 2 of those rich juniors in the team why are you work here? Because I knew they must be getting that monthly allowance as their pocket money from home. They said they consider going to work as going to a class. Then there are no worries. You pay & you learn place.
But using their talent & abilities, audit firm partners become millionaires of this country. Because they get labor almost free of charge. That's not fair.
Does anyone know whether there's a standard salary for trainees by any law in Sri Lanka?
As far as I know there is no standard salary for training in SL. I think like someone mentioned, they can even decide not to pay. The 4500/= that you said they are paid could officially be a stipend, cos as far as I know if its a 'salary' it has to be 10k at least. (there was something about the minimum salary in private sector sometime back. But not too sure on this one). Its sad, but then... can barely do anything about it.
I WORKED AT FORD ROADS KPMG FOR SIX MONTHS THEN THEY WERE PAYING RS 2500.00(ONLY SIX MONTHS I STAYED THERE).DID SOME FANTASTIC WORK IN THE ACCOUNTANCY FEILD-SPECIALLY DUE DILIGENCE FOR TELECOM/PORTS ETC.. ITS A VISIOUS CYCLE IF YOU LOOK AT A TRAINEES PAY. THERE IS NO DOUBT ITS INSTITUTIONAL CORRUPTION AS EVERY THING IN SRI LANKA. POOR FAMILYS WHO WANT THERE SONS AND DAUGHTERS TO BE AUDIT ACCOUNTANTS HAVE TO BE SLAVES OF THIS ORGANISATION.RICH KIDS THE FAMILY WILL LOOK AFTER.
I think all these Audit Trainees should set up a web based "Union" and go on a strike.. For educated people, they are the lowest paid.. no kidding.
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