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Image of a man seated in front of the South African flag with a calendar, papers, tablets and a plant (Vuyo Singiswa) <\/p>\nAccountants, a group not known for blunt political commentary, have delivered some for South Africa ahead of a year of uncertainties.<\/p>\n
Following a convention of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants in Mombasa, Kenya, one of their key messages was that South Africa\u2019s future depends less on Washington and more on Africa.<\/p>\n
Discussions at the convention of about 1,000 finance professionals, public sector executives and businesspeople from across the continent ranged from trade and geopolitics to corruption, skills shortages and sustainability regulation.<\/p>\n
Farooq Ronnie Shumba, owner of FRS Accountants in Joburg, says South Africa has been slow to treat the continent as a serious economic partner. \u201cA lot of people are worried about Agoa [the African Growth & Opportunity Act], and rightly so,\u201d Shumba says. \u201cBut Africa is a large market. We need to stop acting like the West is the only place where opportunity exists.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shumba says the gap is visible even in everyday trade. \u201cOne of South Africa\u2019s biggest exports to the US is wine. But when I came to Kenya, I saw very little quality South African wine. We can\u2019t put all our eggs in the American basket. Africa has money, Africa has people, and Africa has demand.\u201d<\/p>\n
South Africa\u2019s foreign policy, in tension with the US, has unsettled parts of business, but Innocent Gumbochuma, CFO at the South African Qualifications Authority, says the risk is often overstated. \u201cInvestors don\u2019t invest based on Twitter [X] or headlines. They look at whether institutions work.\u201d<\/p>\n
He points to the increase in US tourist arrivals in South Africa last year. \u201cThat tells you something. If there was real instability, people would not be coming. We are not perfect, but our checks and balances are stronger than many. That counts when capital is deciding where to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
Image of a man seated in front of the South African flag with a calendar, papers, tablets and a plant (Vuyo Singiswa) <\/p>\n
He says the pressure from Washington has had a silver lining. \u201cWhen big powers try to push South Africa away, they often push others closer,\u201d he says, citing renewed engagement from Canada and broader support at multilateral forums such as the G20. \u201cNo single country dominates any more.\u201d<\/p>\n
If there was real instability, people would not be coming. We are not perfect, but our checks and balances are stronger than many<\/p>\n
\u2014 \u00a0Innocent Gumbochuma<\/p>\n
For finance executive Manenzhe Manenzhe, the country\u2019s biggest weaknesses are closer to home, particularly in the public sector. \u201cOne of the biggest problems is that budgets are not properly informed by strategy.\u201d <\/p>\n
He says government planning typically operates on five-year strategic frameworks, while budgets are set over three-year cycles, creating misalignment that undermines delivery. \u201cWhen the budget drives the strategy instead of the other way around, service delivery suffers,\u201d he says. \u201cYou end up missing performance targets and then asking why.\u201d<\/p>\n
Manenzhe says the risk is compounded by skills shortages and weak implementation. \u201cIt\u2019s one thing to attract skilled people and another to retain and use them properly. If skills are underutilised, you lose them.\u201d<\/p>\n
He warns that rising borrowing costs pose a long-term danger. \u201cIf we don\u2019t manage public finances carefully, we are passing debt on to the next generation.\u201d <\/p>\n
Corruption emerged as an uncomfortable theme at the convention. Shumba and Gumbochuma acknowledge that the accounting profession is often caught between responsibility and risk. \u201cPeople expect accountants to be investigators,\u201d Shumba says. \u201cWe\u2019re not. We report what is there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not that it absolves the profession. \u201cThere are corrupt accountants,\u201d says Shumba. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen it: VBS, KPMG, all of that.\u201d <\/p>\n
Gumbochuma points to a darker reality. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen finance officials intimidated and even killed for doing their jobs,\u201d he says, citing cases such as that of murdered Tembisa Hospital whistleblower Babita Deokaran. \u201cFear destroys integrity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, he is clear about accountability. \u201cIf money leaves an organisation, an accountant enabled it. Trust is our currency. Once trust collapses, everything collapses.\u201d<\/p>\n
Technology \u2014 especially AI \u2014 was another recurring theme. The consensus was that AI is not eliminating human accountants but is causing rapid change in the profession. \u201cAccounting is not dying,\u201d says Gumbochuma. \u201cWhat\u2019s dying is refusing to upskill. AI can give you numbers; it can\u2019t tell you what they mean.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sustainability regulation is another shift gathering momentum. Lebogang Senne, a South African regulatory adoption consultant and sustainability specialist, says mandatory climate and sustainability disclosures are inevitable. \u201cSouth Africa hasn\u2019t formally adopted the international sustainability standards yet, but the direction is clear.\u201d She says African countries have already begun mandating sustainability reporting, particularly for large and public interest entities. \u201cAt some point, it will become compulsory. And once that happens, assurance requirements will follow.\u201d<\/p>\n
Senne urges finance teams to start treating sustainability data with the same discipline as financial data. \u201cAuditors want evidence. If it\u2019s not documented, it doesn\u2019t exist. Track energy use, water consumption and waste \u2014 even on a simple spreadsheet. This isn\u2019t just compliance; it\u2019s good business practice, especially if you\u2019re part of a larger supply chain.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the challenges, the tone at the convention was not pessimistic. Shumba says accounting remains one of the most powerful routes into the economy. \u201cThere is no business without an accountant. If you want to be close to economic decision-making, this is where you belong.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Accountants, a group not known for blunt political commentary, have delivered some for South Africa ahead of a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24241,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[14796,63,9607,8212,3724,14797,14800,3109,10739,80,14799,131,14798,4749,14801,585],"class_list":{"0":"post-24240","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-south-africa","8":"tag-accountant","9":"tag-africa","10":"tag-african-growth-and-opportunity-act","11":"tag-agoa","12":"tag-ai","13":"tag-ai-in-accounting","14":"tag-babita-deokaran","15":"tag-corruption","16":"tag-geopolitics","17":"tag-kenya","18":"tag-skills-shortages","19":"tag-south-africa","20":"tag-south-africa-sustainability-reporting","21":"tag-sustainability","22":"tag-tembisa-hospital","23":"tag-washington"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24240\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}