Institute of Certified Public Accountants to expose quack practitioners

Officials at the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Uganda (ICPA-U) have said they are ready to work with government to uproot and expose quack accountants in various ministries and parastatals.

The officials made the remarks while answering questions from journalists, during the release of August 2018 examination results, in Kampala on Tuesday.

“There has been public outcry, that quack accountants do exist in various government and private institutions, yet the Accountants Act gives us the right to expose and shame such imposters”, said Frederick Kibeedi, the President of Public Accountants Examination Board.

He added that; by exposing quack accountants, the institute would be promoting moral competence among professional accountants and spearheading socio economic transformation of Uganda.

“There is a high demand of accountants in Uganda, where a total of 20, 000 are required, yet we only have less than 4,000 professional registered accountants in the entire country”, he added.

He in addition said all heads of accounts departments in government and private entities should be professional accountants to curb corruption and financial loses.

While releasing the August 2018 Certified Public Accountants (CPA) examinations, Kato Kayemba, the Chairperson of the Certified Public Accountants Examination Board, said this year’s performance was higher than previous years.

“A total of 3,748 candidates attempted the examinations, which were conducted from Monday 20 to Saturday 25 August 2018. The number of candidates increased from 3,607 in August 2017 examinations to 3,748 in August 2018. This represents an increment of 3.8 percent”, she said.

She added that in terms of gender, 48.8 per cent of those who passed were female and 51.2 per cent were male.

“Majority of the candidates; 42.9 per cent were in the age bracket of 25-29 years, followed by 30-34 at 21 per cent. This implies these candidates are likely to complete the course when they are still young and will therefore have a long time to serve the country”, she added.