Cost of corporate compliance

ANY businessman worth his salt knows the word “cost” and the Cambridge Dictionary defines it as “the amount of money needed to buy, do or make something”. Yet the corporate sector has not really evaluated the cost of corporate compliance, which is a paradox, because the corporate sector has come up with surveys on the increasing costs of doing business and rising competitiveness from other countries. 

In some Commonwealth countries, the cost of doing business has factored in the costs of auditing and maintenance of a company secretary. I find it disturbing that any government or regulatory body would acquiesce to the commercial and corporate sectors’ distortion in the costs of auditing fees and retainer fee for the employment of a company secretary when such costs are marginal and minor compared with major costs such as staff salaries, rental income and production of cheaper goods from Third World and developing countries.