The Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Uganda are set to achieve a milestone in their productivity when it comes to skills of financial reporting after a volunteer opted to pro bono their skills acquisition.
The Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Uganda (ICPAU) opted to bridge the gap to increase the number of SMEs in financial reporting with the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) reporting component.
This is essential as the world aims at dealing with the climate crisis at hand. Hence every company needs to ensure they prioritize the environmental aspect of reducing carbon emissions and deforestation.
Mr. Charles Lutimba, manager of standard and technical support, ICPAU remarked that pro bono services are an extension of free services to Micro Small, and Medium practices to help them in preparing financial reports.
By pro bono it means professional work done voluntarily, as it is the provision of services for people who are unable to pay.
“The call is still open and whoever wishes to have free services such as accountancy, free advisory services, and taxation among others. These are professionals who will serve them best and help them build up their record keeping and financial reports,” he added.
According to Mr. Lutimba, there was a realization that most SMEs don’t attend financial reporting awards (FiRe Awards) while they are fully capable.
The only challenge that they face mainly is coming up with a report therefore this will be of aid to avert what was witnessed during the launch of the 2022 Financial Reporting Awards in Kampala.
“When we have been running the financial reporting awards (FiRe Awards), we realized that there are entities that cannot produce reports yet the product out of whatever they do has a report. That stopped a number of them from participating. But this year we launched the pro bono services; placed a call for entries and a number of entities responded,” Mr. Lutimba said.
