The Malaysian Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators (MAICSA) is pushing for the standardization of minimum professional fee among company secretaries in Malaysia irrespective of which professional bodies they belong to.

“MAICSA is spearheading the Company Secretaries Consultative Group (CSCG) formed under the Corporate Practice Consultative Forum of the Companies Commission of Malaysia (CCM),” said MAICSA president Akbar Moidunny. “The objectives of the group are to address the different fees charged by professional company secretaries and to develop a minimum scale of fees for the various ranges of services provided by professional company secretaries in public practice. This is to ensure a minimum standard in the fee structure and the quality of service commensurate with the level of fees charged,” added Akbar.

Besides MAICSA, other members of the CSCG are the Malaysian Association of Company Secretaries, Institute of Approved Company Secretaries, Persatuan Setiausaha Syarikat Melayu Berlesen Malaysia, Bar Council Malaysia, Malaysian Institute of Accountants and Malaysian Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

Akbar also informed that the Group had met and in principle most of its members agreed to a template on minimum recommended professional secretarial fee. “The template will be circulated to members of professional bodies and forwarded to the Malaysian Industrial Development Authority (MIDA) and CCM.’

Akbar added that CCM had been very receptive of the template and the group was waiting for their endorsement. “CCM’s endorsement is important as it will give certain degree of enforcement among company secretaries especially those who are not members of any professional bodies. Recently, the Small and Medium Industry Development Corporation (Smidec) had also lauded this move and went on further by recommending to PEMUDAH the minimum recommended fee.”

“The services of company secretaries is in high demand now due to strict compliance required by regulators. To ensure these secretaries produce work of high quality, standardization of fee is important as a measure to further enhance their level of services,” ended Akbar who at the same time urged the regulators to endorse the recommended minimum fee scale.