Through a qualitative case study and drawing on postcolonial theory, this paper analyses attempts to implement International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS) aligned accounting reforms in the Solomon Islands. The findings show that accounting reforms promoted by international aid organisations are misaligned with locally embedded authority structures and accountability practices produced under colonial rule. Political interference and entrenched mistrust emerged as significant barriers to reform implementation. Big men politicians’ agendas directly conflicted with IPSAS accountability objectives, resulting in national-level reform failure, while colonial legacies of mistrust between national and provincial actors constrained reform implementation at the provincial government level. This study argues that reform resistance, partial implementation, and symbolic compliance are not aberrations to be corrected through technical fixes or capacity-building initiatives. Instead, they are predictable outcomes of the imposition of globally standardised accounting models onto governance arrangements shaped by colonial histories and sustained through contemporary aid regimes, where accounting functions as a technology of control rather than a vehicle for democratic accountability. By foregrounding the impacts of colonisation on accounting reform, the paper contributes to critical debates on IPSAS implementation and the role of accounting and international organisations in governing postcolonial states.