STANDARD OF THE PAPER The standard of the paper is fairly high. The verbs used in setting the questions include appraise, recommend, prepare a checklist, discuss, analyse and evaluate. Candidates were tasked to use analytical and practical applications to skills to answer the questions. The paper covered a substantial aspect of the syllabus. However area such as quality control, corporate governance, should have been examined. The solutions adequately responded to the requirements of the questions. The marking scheme based on the solutions was structured with fairness to the candidates in mind.

PERFORMANCE OF CANDIDATES Looking at level of difficulty of the questions candidates were expected to have performed very poor but that was not the case. It appeared some candidates did take their time to understand the requirements of the questions. Questions were practically oriented which is excellent. This time candidates did not stray with the columns reserved for examiners and moderators in the answer booklets. However some candidates continue to put page numbers in the space for question numbers which confused examiners. The practical nature of the questions resulted in higher performance by candidates. Performance this session was better than the performance in the previous sessions. This is evident from the percentage passes achieved in the three sessions – November 2018 pass rate was 37%, May 2019 pass rate was 42%, whilst the current pass rate for November 2019 was 67%. It was evident that many candidates have the knowledge but lack the ability or skill to apply the knowledge to solve problems.