The President of the Institute of Certified Public Accountants CPA Constant Othieno Mayende has asked employers to recruit only professional accountants who have undergone training, and are members of ICPAU as per the Accountants Act of 2013.
He made the remarks during the release of the December 2021 Certified Public Accountants (CPA), Certified Tax Advisor (CTA) and Accounting Technicians Diploma (ATD) examinations results.
“There is no reason why you employ unqualified accountants to occupy the space meant for the professionals. This is in total disregard of the law,” Mayende said. He added that the training accountants go through at ICPAU is sufficient for them to add the much-needed value to entities.
“Accountants who are members of ICPAU are highly competent and ethical, and when one breaches the ethical code of conduct, we have a disciplinary mechanism to deal with them”, he said. “This cannot happen with the unqualified that we do not regulate, he added.
He said ICPAU would continue to engage employers on the benefits of employing professional accountants in all the sector of the economy, and crack the whip nothing changes.
The December 2021 Examinations results were released on Wednesday, 19 January 2022 in Kampala for the three examinations diets, the third being held in December 2021. The other diets were held in March 2021 and October 2021.
A total of 4,162 candidates attempted the December 2021 examinations compared to 4,238 of the October 2021 and 4,453 in December 2020. The drop is the numbers was attributed to the impact of COVID-19 pandemic according to the Public Accountants Examinations Board (PAEB) Chairperson, CPA Geoffrey Byamugisha
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The average pass rate was 51.2% which is lower than 60% of the October 2021 examinations diet but higher than 45.5% of the December 2020 examinations diet.
In terms of gender, out of the 131 papers passed, the pass rate for female candidates was 60.3% (79) while it was 39.7% (52) for male candidates. Additionally, 79 (60.3%) of the papers passed were on first attempt.
A total of 62 candidates sat for the CTA examinations, compared to 72 candidates in October 2021 and 58 in December 2020.
The average pass rate decreased to 26.6% as compared to 54.6% in October 2021 and 41.2% in December 2020.
The CTA course provides a critical mass to this country at the time when there are revenue shortfalls due to compliance issues by taxpayers and incompetent professionals dealing in tax.
