Audit Committee
- Mr. Shabbir Hamza Khandwala (Chairman – Independent Director)
- Shariq Maqbool Elahi (Non-Executive Director)
- Naeem Ali Munshi (Non-Executive Director)
Purpose
To assist the Board of Directors in fulfilling its oversight responsibilities for the:
- Integrity of the Company’s financial statements
- Company’s compliance with legal and regulatory requirements
- Independent auditor’s qualifications and independence
- Performance of the Company’s internal audit function and independent auditors
Authority
The Audit Committee has the authority to conduct or authorize investigations into any matter within its scope of responsibility.
It is empowered to:
- recommend to the Board the appointment of external auditors, their removal, audit fees, the provision by external auditors of any service to the Company in addition to audit of the financial statements
- resolve any disagreements between management and the external auditors regarding financial reporting
- meet with Company officers, external auditors, or outside counsel, as necessary
- seek any information it requires from any employee (and all employees are directed to cooperate with any request made by the Audit Committee) and external parties
- obtain outside legal or other professional advice
Meetings
The Audit Committee shall meet at least once every quarter of the financial year. The provisions of the Code of Corporate Governance 2013 shall be complied with in this regard.
Responsibilities
In the absence of strong grounds to proceed otherwise, the Board of Directors acts in accordance with the recommendations of the Audit Committee in the following matters:
- Determination of appropriate measures to safeguard the Company’s assets
- Review of preliminary announcements of results prior to publication
- Review of quarterly, half-yearly and annual financial statements of the Company, prior to their approval by the Board of Directors, focusing on:
- Major judgmental areas
- Significant adjustments resulting from the audit
- The going concern assumption
- Any change in accounting policies and practices
- Compliance with applicable accounting standards
- Compliance with listing regulations and other statutory and regulatory requirements
- Facilitating the external audit and discussion with external auditors of major observations arising from interim and final audits and any matter that the auditors may wish to highlight (in the absence of management, where necessary)
- Review of Management Letter issued by external auditors and management’s response thereto
- Ensuring coordination between the internal and external auditors of the Company
- Review of the scope and extent of internal audit and ensuring that the internal audit function has adequate resources and is appropriately placed within the Company
- Consideration of major findings of internal investigations and management’s response thereto
- Ascertaining that the internal control system including financial and operational controls, accounting system and reporting structure are adequate and effective
- Review of the Company’s statement on internal control systems prior to endorsement by the Board of Directors
- Instituting special projects, value for money studies or other investigations on any matter specified by the Board of Directors, in consultation with the Chief Executive and to consider remittance of any matter to the external auditors or to any other external body
- Determination of compliance with relevant statutory requirements
- Monitoring compliance with the best practices of corporate governance and identification of significant violations thereof
Consideration of any other issue or matter as may be assigned by the Board of Directors.
