ICPAK on spot over foreign recruitment

Officials of the Institute of Public Accountants of Kenya are on the spot for engaging in expensive fishing expeditions for membership outside the country while ignoring readily available professionals here who are yet to join the body.

The accountants’ watchdog has been spending time in expensive European cities in an attempt to “source for members in the diaspora”, raising eyebrows on viability of their trips, where very few or no accountants from Kenya exist in the first place.

Kenyans in the diaspora have been surprised by invites to join forums organised by the Icpak officials who are said to travel with families and reside in expensive hotels, sparking an outcry over lack of accountability.

Mr Joseph Wambua, who has lived in Australia for 12 years, and currently works as group planning manager for a major organisation in Perth, said he was shocked at the unnecessary attention the Kenyan professional organisation was giving his local city, where there were no members in the first place.

According to him, most of those who turned up for the meeting in September 2018 were non-members and mostly did not have to pay to attend.

“In my 10 years of membership with Chartered Accountants Australia – I have never attended a free function, even when I was a committee member – because as officials you are stewards of members’ money. The move by Icpak to use members’ money to entertain non-members overseas, where they are not paying – shows a basic lack of accountability,” Mr Wambua wrote.

The accountants’ body, which has not responded to our questions since February, is said to have been ending up with no recruits, with some events being attended by politicians from Kenya and civil servants serving in offices abroad.

We had sought to find out the number of Icpak members in overseas chapters, whether the trips were fruitful and what the organisation was doing to spruce up its local membership as well as a comment on the alleged wastage of funds in the frequent recruitment drives overseas.