A young audit professional’s tragic death has done what no white paper or seminar ever quite managed: it has forced Sri Lanka to look — uncomfortably — at its audit work culture. What was initially described as an untimely passing has since triggered a harder conversation about excessive workloads, responsibility, silence, and the quiet cost of “professional discipline”.
This is not about assigning blame by headline. It is about asking whether a system long admired for producing technically excellent accountants has become dangerously casual about the humans who pass through it.
From Profession to Pressure Cooker
There is no denying how far accounting and finance education in Sri Lanka has come. What was once a narrowly technical pathway has matured into a globally recognised professional discipline. Universities and professional bodies now teach international standards, ethics, governance, and judgment — not just debits and credits.
Sri Lankan accountants compete globally. They populate Big Four offices, multinational finance teams, and international institutions. This is not accidental. It reflects decades of curriculum reform and professional ambition.
Accounting, rightly, is seen as central to economic governance and public trust. Which is precisely why what happens inside audit firms matters far beyond their walls.
Qualifications as Currency — and Leverage
Professional qualifications have become the true currency of upward mobility. CA Sri Lanka, ACCA, CIMA, AAT — these are not mere acronyms. They are gateways. Families invest years of savings and expectation into them, often treating professional exams as more decisive than a university degree itself.
For employers, these qualifications signal competence and ethics. For students, they represent legitimacy and future security. The result is a highly motivated — and highly dependent — cohort of trainees.
And this is where the imbalance begins.
The Gatekeepers Nobody Talks About
To qualify, trainees must complete mandatory practical training — usually within audit firms. Without it, exams alone mean nothing. Audit firms therefore become more than employers. They are gatekeepers to qualification, career progression, and professional identity itself.
In theory, this training bridges classroom knowledge with real-world judgment. In practice, it also creates dependency.
Questioning hours, workloads, or basic welfare can feel risky when your qualification depends on signatures and time sheets. Silence becomes a survival skill.
When “This Is How It’s Always Been” Stops Being an Answer
Audit work is demanding everywhere. Deadlines are real. Pressure is unavoidable. No one is pretending otherwise.
But concern arises when intensity becomes culture — when long hours, low pay, and exhaustion are normalised as “character building”. Entry-level allowances of LKR 10,000–20,000 a month, alongside 8–12 hour days, are defended as temporary sacrifices. Over time, temporary becomes permanent. Training becomes endurance.
Such systems may still produce competent auditors. But they also risk producing burnout, ethical fatigue, and professionals who exit the field the moment they qualify.
That is not a badge of honour. It is a warning sign.
The Regulatory Blind Spot
Audit firms are tightly regulated — when they audit others.
Professional standards, ethics, exams, and training requirements fall under CA Sri Lanka. This professional regulation is essential and has served the country well.
But professional regulation is not the same as workplace oversight.
There is no audit-specific public mechanism that systematically examines audit firms’ internal governance, trainee workloads, remuneration structures, or duty-of-care standards. General labour laws exist, yes — but they are blunt instruments in a profession built on structural dependency.
This asymmetry should trouble us. Firms entrusted with scrutinising others operate without equivalent scrutiny of how they treat their most junior professionals.
Following the recent tragedy, CA Sri Lanka issued a condolence statement and acknowledged concerns. That is appropriate. But sympathy is not a system.
Reform Without Witch Hunts
None of this implies criminality. Nor is it an attack on an industry that underpins financial credibility.
It is, however, an invitation to reform.
Sri Lanka should consider:
a public oversight mechanism that complements professional regulation by reviewing firm-level governance and training environments;
transparency reporting by audit firms on workloads, training structures, and quality controls;
clearer visibility on trainee remuneration where qualifications depend on mandatory service;
closer alignment between labour standards and professional requirements.
These are not radical ideas. They are global norms catching up with local realities.
The Bottom Line
If auditors are entrusted with holding companies accountable, then the profession must also be accountable to those who sustain it.
Professional excellence does not require silent suffering. Discipline does not require depletion. And a system that produces great accountants at the cost of human well-being eventually audits itself — badly.
This moment should not pass as another sad footnote.
It should be the point where Sri Lanka decides that professionalism includes responsibility — not just performance.
