Accountants Urged To Stay True To Their Profession Amidst Quest For Technology

Practicing professional accountants in Uganda have been urged to stay true to the principles of accountancy amidst the argue to adopt and use new technology

Winnie Tarinyeba, a member of the international Ethics Board for Accountants said that adaptation of new technologies is good because it makes accountancy more efficient, but that it should not be at the expense of the professional code of the accountancy profession.

According to her, Technology comes with challenges like privacy concerns, misuse of data, threat to public health and safety, biased decision among others

“The new technology will help in making your work fast and efficient, however uplifting the ethical codes like fairness, transparency, objectivity, integrity, confidentiality, explainability is your responsibility as the professional practicing accountant,” she said.

Tarinyeba was speaking at the Institute of Public Accountants of Uganda Practitioners’ forum hosted Thursday at the Imperial Royale Hotel

The forum is an annual event organised by ICPAU for practicing and registered Accountants so that they can reflect on the developments in the sector but also discuss new challenges that are affecting them.

Speaking at the same event, the President ICPAU Frederick Kibeddi urged government to work with them to eliminate unprofessional and uncertified accountants that are practicing illegally.

“We want government bodies like Uganda Revenue Authority (URA), KCCA and others to only allow services like auditing and tax filing from certified accountants if we are to eliminate issues like tax invasion. They cannot expect the certified accountants to do the right thing when they are still allowing illegal accountants to do official work,” he said

Currently there are about 3000 certified accountants in Uganda