The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Kampala, Uganda | JULIUS BUSINGE | Bank of Uganda (BOU) Deputy Governor Louis Kasekende has advised accountants in Uganda to borrow and adapt international standards in their bid to positively contribute to nation building.
“They must look at international standards that are released by their international body and…then adapt them to Uganda,” Kasekende said, adding, “To me that is what will help us.”
Kasekende made the remarks as chief guest at the 22nd annual seminar of the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Uganda (ICPAU) at Imperial Resort Beach Hotel in Entebbe on Sept. 06.
In addition, he said that there is need for continuous training for even those who have already got certifications.
“We need to train them because things have changed even the way we do work. We now depend on IT systems,” he added.
When asked whether accountants were doing their work in an ethical manner, Kasekende said that it is an issue of the standards themselves responding to challenges which is why from time to time they (accountants) are issuing new standards of disclosure.
“We should be grateful that they do that,” he said.
He said that accountants in Uganda are helping Bank of Uganda in executing its role because the bank depends on numbers from banks which they (accountants) prepare.
On the conflicting auditing reports that had different opinion on financial statements of the defunct Crane Bank, Kasekende said: “I am not going to fault the accounting profession, I will fault those who deliberately misinformed the accountants; they deliberately hide certain information away from accountants and then misinformed the regulator; they misinformed their external auditors and they must have misinformed other professionals within that particular institution.”
Kasekende said that high accounting standards and the professional expertise of accountants play a key role in each of the fundamental pillars of a sound banking system – the corporate governance of banks, their external audit and the prudential regulation and supervision undertaken by a public agency (usually the central bank).
This year’s seminar was attended by over 1000 accountants and was organised under the theme; ‘ICPAU@25’.
