Accountants body not impressed by recent pass rate

September 20, 2017 in Finance, Financial Services by Editor

Begumisa (right), said part of the problem is that candidates do not take the coursework seriously but Mayanja (left), is looking forward to a bigger percentage beating the passing rate.

September 20—The Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Uganda (ICPAU) early this week released the August CPA results with the average pass rate dropping from 35% for the June round to 31.9% last month.

Protazio Begumisa, the ICPAU president said, the reason why only a few accountants are able to successfully complete the course is, because the candidates do not buy the necessary reading materials recommended for the course as well as attend training with certified lecturers.

“We have been experiencing low quality work in the exams, because these candidates do not give the course the time it deserves. Also some lecturers’ who charge cheaply do not do the right training needed for a candidate to pass the course. We ask the students who are currently pursuing the course or looking forward to pursuing it to take advantage of the reading material that has been introduced by the Institute but also to pay proper tuition and only attend training with lecturers who have been approved by the Institute,” Begumisa said.

The results are of the examinations held from Monday August 21 to Friday August 25, 2017 in Kampala exclusively for the certified public accountants of the Uganda CPA course. Of the 3, 607 students that sat for the examination, only 97 candidates were able to successfully complete the CPA course.

Uthman Mayanja, the Chairman of the ICPAU examination board, said the Institute has over 3,015 students who have completed the CPA course. “We are happy to cross the 3,000 certified accountants mark. We are looking forward to increasing this number to 5,000 by 2020,” he said.

Mayanja said, “We appreciate the examiners, moderators, markers, security team, invigilators, service providers and the Secretariat for the contribution to the examination process. Together we look forward to continue uplifting the accountant profession in Uganda and the rest of East Africa.”

This month’s performance is relatively poor compared to results of June 2017 where the pass rate was 35%.However, officials said most of the students who sat for August exams are those that had failed in June and hence had less time to adequately prepare for the exams.