Rwanda will host the second edition of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) for Africans that will define best practices with Rwanda sharing its journey in the field of public and private accounting.
The ACCA Africa Members’ Convention will also ignite new business opportunities through thought leadership, anticipating risks, re-thinking business models and turning ideas into solutions.
The Convention will be held at the Kigali Convention Centre in Rwanda on December 9 – 11, 2019 bringing together up to 1,000 delegates from 33 countries across Africa. This year’s theme will be Evolution of finance: Africa thriving in a disruptive socio-technomic dispensation.
Jamil Ampomah, Director of ACCA Sub-Saharan Africa said that the conference is a fantastic opportunity for finance professionals to share their insights and discuss the topical issues they face.
“It is important for local and regional communities to come together and forge a positive and sustainable future. By addressing the future role and relevance of accountancy and finance in Africa, this event will enable ACCA to demonstrate its membership capacity, strength and expansive network across Africa and globally,” Ampomah said in a statement.
The inaugural AMC event was held in October 2017, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia attracting several influential and renowned finance and business leaders from across the continent, including Kenyan public speaker- Prof. Patrick Lumumba.
Rwandan professional accountants are identified and regulated under institute of certified accountants in Rwanda (ICPAR) – which is a member of the ACCA- one of the oldest accounting professional group with 100 years now.
“Rwanda has some accounting professionals who had done accounting courses under ACCA. This convention will be a testimony for our country to showcase its accountability and we hope ACCA members will cheer some excitement for youth to pursue accounting as a profession in the country,” said Mkombozi Karake, the former president of iCPAR, and coordinator of the Kigali event.
Statistics indicate that in Rwanda, the lack of accountants is still a wide ratio gap. For every 30,250 citizens there is only one accountant, while in countries like Mauritius the ratio is 525 citizens to one, and South Africa 1725 citizens to one accountant.
One of the things that Rwanda will showcase will be the bid to clean up the professional accountant sector which was in the previous year tainted by unprofessional behaviors.
For example, iCPAR, Rwanda Revenue Authority has previously filed several complaints about accountants who endorse books of accounts without verifying the facts and evidence, which in turn has blemished the image of accountants despite the big gap of lack of professional and certified accountants in Rwanda.
While taking office in April 2019, Dr. Patrick Uwizeye, CPA said that new changes have been put in place to deal with such conduct.
“There is a license that we give to all certified firms and if such matters arise, it will be withdrawn and will no longer sign anything for anybody. So, that is punitive enough,” Uwizeye said.
Rwanda is also currently dealing with the issue of gap between accountant-to-citizen ratio and the institute has invested heavily in capacity building, soliciting international accredited training material and a revised syllabus for certified technician accounts (CAT), with plans to revise the certified professional accountant (CPA) programs.
ICPAR was established in 2008 and some of its achievements included increasing its presence in the economy, training and increasing number of professional accounts from four to close to 500 today and establishing professional syllabi for over 1000 students currently pursuing courses as Professional accounts and technicians.
