Dr Terence Nombembe
With financial and accounting skills cited as a major challenge in ensuring effective public sector governance, the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA) has offered to work with the public sector to develop high level accounting skills.
Dr Terence Nombembe, Chief Executive of SAICA, told the Limpopo Provincial Public Sector Corporate Governance and Ethical Workshop that the accounting profession in South Africa was being transformed, to take high level accounting skills beyond the private sector — to include public sector and civil society organisations.
“If the South African public sector is to succeed in its mandate, it must invest in developing qualified accounting professionals.” He said it should be noted that it could take up to 10 years for high level professionals such as auditors to come through the system, so the investment should be made now.
“There are no shortcuts to developing skills for sound financial management. We need to put money into producing accounting professionals for Limpopo now,” he said.
Delegates at the workshop noted that securing the services of high level accounting professionals was often a challenge in remote municipalities or where the budget for these professionals was inadequate, compared with remuneration offered to them in the private sector.
Nombembe said SAICA was looking to work with the government on projects to develop the necessary skills and to improve financial management standards in the public service. He noted that the results of the efforts made by the public sector today might be seen only by the next generation. “We need to view the long-term nature of the work we are doing. Things don’t happen overnight. If we understand this, we will not succumb to the temptation to seek quick gains, and invest in transforming public service delivery accountability and governance in the long term,” he said.