Students urged to embrace accounting profession

The president of the Institute of Certified Public Accountancy of Rwanda (ICPAR), Peter Rutaremara, has called on students to take on accounting studies, saying there is ready market for labour in the field. Rutaremara observed that basing on the rate at which the country is developing and measures taken to further simplify doing business, there is optimism that more investors or businesses opening will require a big number of accountants and auditors.“We have so far registered only 211 professional accountants and auditors; meaning that there is a gap that should be filled,” Rutaremara said.He made the call during ICPAR`s second annual conference that ended on Friday. It attracted a cross section of CEO`s, accountants, auditors, risk experts, tax consultants, and business leaders.“We need more people to join the profession based on our rate of development, but still, as one of the ways through which we can favorably compete in the labour market within and beyond the region,” said Rutaremara.Institutes of Certified Public Accountants in the EAC bloc are also being represented at the three day conference at Kivu Serena Hotel in Rubavu District, Western Province under the theme “Accountancy and Development”.Among others, the conference aimed at coming up with strategies to develop and promote the accounting profession through networking. Recently, accountants and auditors called on ICPAR to come up with mechanisms to enable them acquire skills on latest programmes in their field of operation; something they said was affecting their day-to-day performance.In an interview with The Sunday Times, Robert Tebasuula a senior accountant from the Institute of Certified Public Accountancy of Uganda noted that there is need to strengthen networking.“Each other day, there is technology advancement that brings new programmes to which I believe is for the better; therefore teaming up will help us to utilize these changes positively,” Tebasuula noted.