A few weeks ago, I attended an event at the East London International Convention Centre which left me convinced that I should have widened my career choice after matric.
This was no ordinary event. It was a gathering of chartered accounts mainly from international accounting firm Deloitte who were attending a celebratory dinner for the appointment of one of their colleagues, as a partner at Deloitte.
The assumption I had when I saw the invitation was the event was going to be dedicated to an old man in his late fifties.
I took the firm Deloitte and added the word partner and I came up with an old man who has seen and done it all and who was about to retire in a few years and enjoy the fruits of his long service to the international accounting firm.
To my shock and surprise the man of the night would be none other than Sisa Ntlango, a man in his early thirties, from KwaBodweni Village in Lusikisiki.
Like the majority of other black youths living in rural areas, he endured a difficult schooling system often with limited resources, but persevered because at the back of his mind education was a ticket to a better life for himself and his family.
And after many years of studying and absorbing knowledge with sheer hard work and dedication, his drive for excellence saw him appointed as a partner at Deloitte.
He is now not just an employee but a part-owner, which places him in a position to influence and drive the direction of this highly successful multinational accounting firm.
The humble Ntlango attributes his rise up the corporate ladder to self-discipline, passion and guidance from his senior colleagues including Lwazi Bam, the CEO of Deloitte in Africa, another son of the Eastern Cape, who has held his hand during his meteoric rise in the firm.
He joins an elite group of chartered accounts with deep roots in the Eastern Cape who are making an indelible mark in both the public and private sector.
Seemingly, the seed that was planted by Professor Wiseman Nkuhlu, the first registered black chartered accountant in South Africa, is beginning to bear fruit as more and more young people especially from rural areas take up the challenging and exciting career of chartered accountancy.
Ntlango’s progressive appointment as a partner at Deloitte comes at a time when our government is focusing its energies on strengthening sound financial management in the public sector.
Year after year financial reporting in government reflects improvements that begin to indicate that we can achieve universally clean audit outcomes in our provincial administration.
There are, however, areas where we need to put more emphasis to ensure adherence to acceptable accounting and public finance management practices.
Central to our efforts of strengthening and improving our financial reporting and ultimately our audit outcomes is the acquirement and retention of skilled personnel.
South Africa has some of the finest accounting practitioners in the world but it is really difficult to attract and keep internal auditors and financial managers in some of our public institutions especially in our municipalities.
Compounding this challenge further is the phenomenon of high staff turnover, mainly of government auditors and senior financial managers.
We lose highly skilled individuals to private practices who pay good salaries and benefits. It might be that we need to find creative ways of becoming competitive with others without necessarily overburdening the government purse.
In terms of a more long-term approach, it might indeed be necessary for government to take a deliberate decision like we have done on the medical students programme and provide funding on a large-scale to encourage young people to study towards a qualification in chartered accountancy.
A glimpse of the statistics reveals that this a study field to be explored.
To date there are 36000 chartered accountants in South Africa serving a nation of 56 million citizens.
Just a mere 8000 are classified black and only 3400 are black Africans.
Ntlango falls into this category and has a passion to plough back and unearth even more talent in the Eastern Cape to lure them into the exciting field of chartered accountancy.
As government we must come on board and play our part in this process.
Sakhumzi Somyo is a member of the executive council for the ministry of finance, economic development, environmental affairs and tourism in the Eastern Cape.
More young CAs needed to tackle state number crunch
This was no ordinary event. It was a gathering of chartered accounts mainly from international accounting firm Deloitte who were attending a celebratory dinner for the appointment of one of their colleagues, as a partner at Deloitte.
The assumption I had when I saw the invitation was the event was going to be dedicated to an old man in his late fifties.
I took the firm Deloitte and added the word partner and I came up with an old man who has seen and done it all and who was about to retire in a few years and enjoy the fruits of his long service to the international accounting firm.
To my shock and surprise the man of the night would be none other than Sisa Ntlango, a man in his early thirties, from KwaBodweni Village in Lusikisiki.
Like the majority of other black youths living in rural areas, he endured a difficult schooling system often with limited resources, but persevered because at the back of his mind education was a ticket to a better life for himself and his family.
And after many years of studying and absorbing knowledge with sheer hard work and dedication, his drive for excellence saw him appointed as a partner at Deloitte.
He is now not just an employee but a part-owner, which places him in a position to influence and drive the direction of this highly successful multinational accounting firm.
The humble Ntlango attributes his rise up the corporate ladder to self-discipline, passion and guidance from his senior colleagues including Lwazi Bam, the CEO of Deloitte in Africa, another son of the Eastern Cape, who has held his hand during his meteoric rise in the firm.
He joins an elite group of chartered accounts with deep roots in the Eastern Cape who are making an indelible mark in both the public and private sector.
Seemingly, the seed that was planted by Professor Wiseman Nkuhlu, the first registered black chartered accountant in South Africa, is beginning to bear fruit as more and more young people especially from rural areas take up the challenging and exciting career of chartered accountancy.
Ntlango’s progressive appointment as a partner at Deloitte comes at a time when our government is focusing its energies on strengthening sound financial management in the public sector.
Year after year financial reporting in government reflects improvements that begin to indicate that we can achieve universally clean audit outcomes in our provincial administration.
There are, however, areas where we need to put more emphasis to ensure adherence to acceptable accounting and public finance management practices.
Central to our efforts of strengthening and improving our financial reporting and ultimately our audit outcomes is the acquirement and retention of skilled personnel.
South Africa has some of the finest accounting practitioners in the world but it is really difficult to attract and keep internal auditors and financial managers in some of our public institutions especially in our municipalities.
Compounding this challenge further is the phenomenon of high staff turnover, mainly of government auditors and senior financial managers.
We lose highly skilled individuals to private practices who pay good salaries and benefits. It might be that we need to find creative ways of becoming competitive with others without necessarily overburdening the government purse.
In terms of a more long-term approach, it might indeed be necessary for government to take a deliberate decision like we have done on the medical students programme and provide funding on a large-scale to encourage young people to study towards a qualification in chartered accountancy.
A glimpse of the statistics reveals that this a study field to be explored.
To date there are 36000 chartered accountants in South Africa serving a nation of 56 million citizens.
Just a mere 8000 are classified black and only 3400 are black Africans.
Ntlango falls into this category and has a passion to plough back and unearth even more talent in the Eastern Cape to lure them into the exciting field of chartered accountancy.
As government we must come on board and play our part in this process.
Sakhumzi Somyo is a member of the executive council for the ministry of finance, economic development, environmental affairs and tourism in the Eastern Cape.
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