Date: 24/07/2003
Source: KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Government
Title: Singh: Gala dinner of SA Institute of Chartered Accountants' Grade 11 Business Camp
KEYNOTE ADDRESS BY MR NAREND SINGH, KWAZULU-NATAL MINISTER OF EDUCATION AND CULTURE, AT A GALA DINNER OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN INSTITUTE OF CHARTERED ACCOUNTANTS GRADE 11 BUSINESS CAMP, Umbogintwini Club, Amanzimtoti, Thursday, 24 July 2003
SALUTATIONS
I am deeply honoured to have been asked to address you tonight at a gathering, which, for me, touches in more ways than one on the issues we face in South Africa, and in this province, and on my Portfolio of Education and Culture. I believe that numeracy and accounting skills will in many ways determine whether we succeed or fail in this country, and I believe this applies in the government sector as much as in the private sector. I see the partnership established by your Institute with my Department in organising this Business Camp for historically disadvantaged learners, for the second year running, as being entirely consistent with my vision of partnership with the private sector in overcoming the backlogs we have in education. Also, I see this practical introduction to accountancy, as a career coinciding perfectly with the emphasis we have in my Department on working toward employability among school-leavers rather than a statistical matriculation pass rate. I would like to take the opportunity to enlarge on the way I see accounting skills contributing in the three areas I have mentioned.
Private sector
I believe that the accounting profession, as represented by your Institute, is at the core of South Africa's economic development. Without accounting skills you cannot run any sort of business. Without proper accounting, and the related function of auditing, balance sheets would be meaningless; the Stock Exchange would have no credibility. In fact, the economy simply could not function without reliable business information and figures. It is only through the accounting profession, with its skills and its rigorous standards of performance and integrity that the economy has been able to function and to grow to its present levels. Only if those standards are maintained, and the skills are spread to a widening pool of practising accountants, will the economy be able to grow to the extent needed if we are to wipe out current social backlogs. I see accounting skills, and the professional standards which go with them, as a vital strand in our development. Allow that strand to snap, by being over-stretched, and economic conditions could become chaotic. To me it makes absolute sense therefore that your Institute should seek to expand its membership among previously disadvantaged communities, partly to recruit numbers, partly to compensate for past discrimination and injustice but also, I believe, to propagate the values of scrupulous financial honesty which are absolutely fundamental to future economic success and without which no reputable potential investor is likely to risk his capital in South Africa. As I see it, the accounting profession is a vital sinew in our economy.
Public sector
Ladies and gentlemen, I have been speaking about the private sector. However, accounting skills and standards of integrity are, I believe, just as important in the public sector, where massive quantities of taxpayers' money are budgeted and spent. My Department, for instance, has a Budget this year of R11.8 billion, the second largest in the country after the Department of Defence. It is vitally important, to my mind, not just that taxpayers should be protected against corruption and fraud but they should be protected also against their money being wasted and misapplied. Great skills are required in properly handling and tracking such vast amounts of money, and I see a growing role in this respect for the accounting profession. I can speak from experience. About a year ago, a chartered accountant from one of the leading firms was seconded to my Department to assist with budgetary management. He recently took up a full-time position as Chief Financial Officer, and the positive impact his expertise has had on the budgeting and control procedures is remarkable. We now have a far clearer idea where we stand. We know where we are headed. And we have also succeeded, for the first time, in reducing the proportion (in terms of the overall Budget) applied to personnel expenditure. This frees up significant funding to improve the quality of education we are able to offer, but I do not believe we would be able to do this with confidence unless we had the accounting skills to provide us with the accurate, reliable information we need.
What I am saying, ladies and gentlemen, is that I can see the accounting profession making a significant contribution to effective governance by putting in place procedures and practices to ensure not only that public monies are safe from misappropriation but that they are properly and timeously spent as intended. I see the accounting profession setting the standards and increasingly playing a role in this regard, and this is an avenue the Grade 11 learners with us tonight could well consider in planning their careers. Accountable government, which is a criterion for membership of the African Union and an underpinning principle of the New Partnership for Africa's Development - NEPAD - includes the literal meaning of financial accountability. When we look at the turmoil which so disfigures several parts of Africa today, I believe much of it can be traced back several decades to a lack of capacity to handle budgets, and the consequent collapse of effective government. South Africa is a long way from falling into that kind of trap, I am glad to say, but I believe we need to enhance our management of public monies wherever we can.
Anti-corruption drive
And in this regard, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to make it clear that my Department is prepared to accept nothing but the highest standards of financial probity and accountability. We are not prepared to compromise. A few days ago I dismissed the appeals of nine officials, including two school principals, who had been found guilty departmentally of a range of financial misdemeanours involving a total of about R100 000. They are now dismissed from the Department and, where appropriate, criminal prosecutions will be brought. This Department is going to be very tough indeed on financial mismanagement of any sort.
I have instructed my Chief Financial Officer to investigate the installation of a corruption hotline with which members of the public - which includes parents, members of school management bodies, even learners themselves - will be able to report suspicions of corruption or other malpractice, which would then be investigated.
When I first took over this portfolio I promised to get rid of the rotten apples. I believe this shows I am in earnest.
Partnership
I turn now to the issue of partnership. I see partnership between my Department and the private sector as an absolutely essential means of developing synergies and achieving results, which would otherwise not be possible. It is increasingly a theme of my Department's strategy to eliminate the backlogs we inherited in education in KwaZulu-Natal. This Business Development Camp, in which officials of my Department have selected for you a group of promising Grade 11 learners, is one example of partnership. We are also entering partnerships in the provision of infrastructure, in procurement of materials and in developing new programmes. Needs will always outstrip resources, ladies and gentlemen. That is why there is a limit to what my Department can achieve with its budgetary allocation. But I believe that, in partnership with the private sector - which includes professional institutes such as SAICA - achievements can be exponential. My Department will always provide the core services in education - that will always be the case - but I believe there is enormous scope for enhancement through interaction with the private sector, as well as with overseas governments and international donor agencies.
Five years ago some leading players in the corporate sector were instrumental in forming the KwaZulu-Natal Education Development Trust, which is a partnership with my Department and has, since then, raised some R35 million for projects in education, much of it from overseas sources. I see this activity gathering pace in the years ahead. Meanwhile, private organisations are involving themselves in school and classroom-building programmes, in partnership with my Department. Only a week or so ago, we signed an innovative R100 million service agreement with the provincial parastatal, the Ithala Development Finance Corporation, which will see the building of 18 new schools by next March. These are schools which would not have been provided within the conventional school-building programme. The same day, my Department transferred over to the Independent Development Trust R40 million for a classroom-building programme. Again, new classrooms will be provided which would not have been possible under the conventional building programme - which simultaneously continues on its own track. I believe, ladies and gentlemen, that it is innovative partnerships such as these that offer the promise of wiping out the backlogs more quickly than seemed at first possible.
This Business Development Camp is, as I say, one such partnership and I am delighted that my Department should be working with an organisation of the stature and reputation of SAICA. I congratulate you on your vision in setting up such an exercise and I am sure it will pay dividends, both in recruitment of quality individuals to your profession, in giving a golden opportunity to learners from the disadvantaged sector and in strengthening the accountancy profession and contributing to the economy. Thanks are also due to the sponsors, KPMG, the participating accounting firms, the universities, the Association for the Advancement of Black Accountants in Southern Africa and the Human Health Development Trust, all of which have, I understand, made a great input, as well as the educators and learners who have put so much into it.
School governing bodies
However, my appeal to the accounting profession is to go further in this engagement with education. Many of the school governing bodies are desperately in need of training and advice in financial management. Unaccustomed to such responsibilities, they often fall totally under the sway of the school principal, which defeats the purpose of the system. Members of the legal profession - magistrates among them - have volunteered legal advice for these bodies. If the accounting profession were to match this with voluntary training or supervision in financial management, the quality of decision-making would be greatly enhanced. I urge you to consider it. My Department would gladly engage you in discussions as to how this could be achieved.
Employability
Ladies and gentlemen, the question of employability on leaving school is cause for concern. Something like only 5% of school-leavers in KwaZulu-Natal go on into formal employment; another 13% move into tertiary education. It leaves us asking the question: What happens to the other 82%? It is a frightening question and I believe it is essential that my Department should focus on providing vocational courses as far as possible, where learners acquire skills which equip them for employment in the workplace. In my opinion, accounting and related business skills rate high in this regard, which is why there is a strong emphasis on them in the 15 Institutions of Further Education and Training which have been established across the province to complement normal academic learning. I believe the employment rate is every bit as important as the matriculation pass rate and I would like to see more children leaving school with qualifications sought by the business sector. I believe there is room for fruitful engagement with your Institute this regard and I would like to think of my Department's involvement with the Business Development Camp as merely a start.
Bursaries
In conclusion, I now address myself primarily to the learners who have participated in this year's Camp. I congratulate those who have received awards and to all of you I say: well done on being selected. You represent the cream of a category, which, in spite of disadvantagement, has shown an aptitude for accounting. By all accounts your enthusiasm and energy have been impressive, and I am sure you now have a clear vision of a potential career which would be materially rewarding to yourselves but would also serve your community and society as a whole. For the reasons I spelled out earlier, accounting skills, and the integrity of the accounting profession, are absolutely vital to the future of this country, both in the private sector and in government. I urge you to become part of it. You have the aptitude; otherwise you would not have been selected for this Camp. I urge you to grasp the opportunity. My Department does make bursaries available, so if you decide on a career in accountancy you should make a bursary application to my office so that you can be provided with education in this "scarce skills" category. It is over to you. A great and rewarding career could lie ahead of every one of you.
Ladies and gentlemen, I hope I have conveyed the regard I have for the accounting profession and the significance I see in the Business Development Camp. My thanks to your Institute for organising it and to all who arranged tonight's function.
I thank you for your attention.
Issued by KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Government
24 July 2003
Source: KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Government
Title: Singh: Gala dinner of SA Institute of Chartered Accountants' Grade 11 Business Camp
KEYNOTE ADDRESS BY MR NAREND SINGH, KWAZULU-NATAL MINISTER OF EDUCATION AND CULTURE, AT A GALA DINNER OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN INSTITUTE OF CHARTERED ACCOUNTANTS GRADE 11 BUSINESS CAMP, Umbogintwini Club, Amanzimtoti, Thursday, 24 July 2003
SALUTATIONS
I am deeply honoured to have been asked to address you tonight at a gathering, which, for me, touches in more ways than one on the issues we face in South Africa, and in this province, and on my Portfolio of Education and Culture. I believe that numeracy and accounting skills will in many ways determine whether we succeed or fail in this country, and I believe this applies in the government sector as much as in the private sector. I see the partnership established by your Institute with my Department in organising this Business Camp for historically disadvantaged learners, for the second year running, as being entirely consistent with my vision of partnership with the private sector in overcoming the backlogs we have in education. Also, I see this practical introduction to accountancy, as a career coinciding perfectly with the emphasis we have in my Department on working toward employability among school-leavers rather than a statistical matriculation pass rate. I would like to take the opportunity to enlarge on the way I see accounting skills contributing in the three areas I have mentioned.
Private sector
I believe that the accounting profession, as represented by your Institute, is at the core of South Africa's economic development. Without accounting skills you cannot run any sort of business. Without proper accounting, and the related function of auditing, balance sheets would be meaningless; the Stock Exchange would have no credibility. In fact, the economy simply could not function without reliable business information and figures. It is only through the accounting profession, with its skills and its rigorous standards of performance and integrity that the economy has been able to function and to grow to its present levels. Only if those standards are maintained, and the skills are spread to a widening pool of practising accountants, will the economy be able to grow to the extent needed if we are to wipe out current social backlogs. I see accounting skills, and the professional standards which go with them, as a vital strand in our development. Allow that strand to snap, by being over-stretched, and economic conditions could become chaotic. To me it makes absolute sense therefore that your Institute should seek to expand its membership among previously disadvantaged communities, partly to recruit numbers, partly to compensate for past discrimination and injustice but also, I believe, to propagate the values of scrupulous financial honesty which are absolutely fundamental to future economic success and without which no reputable potential investor is likely to risk his capital in South Africa. As I see it, the accounting profession is a vital sinew in our economy.
Public sector
Ladies and gentlemen, I have been speaking about the private sector. However, accounting skills and standards of integrity are, I believe, just as important in the public sector, where massive quantities of taxpayers' money are budgeted and spent. My Department, for instance, has a Budget this year of R11.8 billion, the second largest in the country after the Department of Defence. It is vitally important, to my mind, not just that taxpayers should be protected against corruption and fraud but they should be protected also against their money being wasted and misapplied. Great skills are required in properly handling and tracking such vast amounts of money, and I see a growing role in this respect for the accounting profession. I can speak from experience. About a year ago, a chartered accountant from one of the leading firms was seconded to my Department to assist with budgetary management. He recently took up a full-time position as Chief Financial Officer, and the positive impact his expertise has had on the budgeting and control procedures is remarkable. We now have a far clearer idea where we stand. We know where we are headed. And we have also succeeded, for the first time, in reducing the proportion (in terms of the overall Budget) applied to personnel expenditure. This frees up significant funding to improve the quality of education we are able to offer, but I do not believe we would be able to do this with confidence unless we had the accounting skills to provide us with the accurate, reliable information we need.
What I am saying, ladies and gentlemen, is that I can see the accounting profession making a significant contribution to effective governance by putting in place procedures and practices to ensure not only that public monies are safe from misappropriation but that they are properly and timeously spent as intended. I see the accounting profession setting the standards and increasingly playing a role in this regard, and this is an avenue the Grade 11 learners with us tonight could well consider in planning their careers. Accountable government, which is a criterion for membership of the African Union and an underpinning principle of the New Partnership for Africa's Development - NEPAD - includes the literal meaning of financial accountability. When we look at the turmoil which so disfigures several parts of Africa today, I believe much of it can be traced back several decades to a lack of capacity to handle budgets, and the consequent collapse of effective government. South Africa is a long way from falling into that kind of trap, I am glad to say, but I believe we need to enhance our management of public monies wherever we can.
Anti-corruption drive
And in this regard, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to make it clear that my Department is prepared to accept nothing but the highest standards of financial probity and accountability. We are not prepared to compromise. A few days ago I dismissed the appeals of nine officials, including two school principals, who had been found guilty departmentally of a range of financial misdemeanours involving a total of about R100 000. They are now dismissed from the Department and, where appropriate, criminal prosecutions will be brought. This Department is going to be very tough indeed on financial mismanagement of any sort.
I have instructed my Chief Financial Officer to investigate the installation of a corruption hotline with which members of the public - which includes parents, members of school management bodies, even learners themselves - will be able to report suspicions of corruption or other malpractice, which would then be investigated.
When I first took over this portfolio I promised to get rid of the rotten apples. I believe this shows I am in earnest.
Partnership
I turn now to the issue of partnership. I see partnership between my Department and the private sector as an absolutely essential means of developing synergies and achieving results, which would otherwise not be possible. It is increasingly a theme of my Department's strategy to eliminate the backlogs we inherited in education in KwaZulu-Natal. This Business Development Camp, in which officials of my Department have selected for you a group of promising Grade 11 learners, is one example of partnership. We are also entering partnerships in the provision of infrastructure, in procurement of materials and in developing new programmes. Needs will always outstrip resources, ladies and gentlemen. That is why there is a limit to what my Department can achieve with its budgetary allocation. But I believe that, in partnership with the private sector - which includes professional institutes such as SAICA - achievements can be exponential. My Department will always provide the core services in education - that will always be the case - but I believe there is enormous scope for enhancement through interaction with the private sector, as well as with overseas governments and international donor agencies.
Five years ago some leading players in the corporate sector were instrumental in forming the KwaZulu-Natal Education Development Trust, which is a partnership with my Department and has, since then, raised some R35 million for projects in education, much of it from overseas sources. I see this activity gathering pace in the years ahead. Meanwhile, private organisations are involving themselves in school and classroom-building programmes, in partnership with my Department. Only a week or so ago, we signed an innovative R100 million service agreement with the provincial parastatal, the Ithala Development Finance Corporation, which will see the building of 18 new schools by next March. These are schools which would not have been provided within the conventional school-building programme. The same day, my Department transferred over to the Independent Development Trust R40 million for a classroom-building programme. Again, new classrooms will be provided which would not have been possible under the conventional building programme - which simultaneously continues on its own track. I believe, ladies and gentlemen, that it is innovative partnerships such as these that offer the promise of wiping out the backlogs more quickly than seemed at first possible.
This Business Development Camp is, as I say, one such partnership and I am delighted that my Department should be working with an organisation of the stature and reputation of SAICA. I congratulate you on your vision in setting up such an exercise and I am sure it will pay dividends, both in recruitment of quality individuals to your profession, in giving a golden opportunity to learners from the disadvantaged sector and in strengthening the accountancy profession and contributing to the economy. Thanks are also due to the sponsors, KPMG, the participating accounting firms, the universities, the Association for the Advancement of Black Accountants in Southern Africa and the Human Health Development Trust, all of which have, I understand, made a great input, as well as the educators and learners who have put so much into it.
School governing bodies
However, my appeal to the accounting profession is to go further in this engagement with education. Many of the school governing bodies are desperately in need of training and advice in financial management. Unaccustomed to such responsibilities, they often fall totally under the sway of the school principal, which defeats the purpose of the system. Members of the legal profession - magistrates among them - have volunteered legal advice for these bodies. If the accounting profession were to match this with voluntary training or supervision in financial management, the quality of decision-making would be greatly enhanced. I urge you to consider it. My Department would gladly engage you in discussions as to how this could be achieved.
Employability
Ladies and gentlemen, the question of employability on leaving school is cause for concern. Something like only 5% of school-leavers in KwaZulu-Natal go on into formal employment; another 13% move into tertiary education. It leaves us asking the question: What happens to the other 82%? It is a frightening question and I believe it is essential that my Department should focus on providing vocational courses as far as possible, where learners acquire skills which equip them for employment in the workplace. In my opinion, accounting and related business skills rate high in this regard, which is why there is a strong emphasis on them in the 15 Institutions of Further Education and Training which have been established across the province to complement normal academic learning. I believe the employment rate is every bit as important as the matriculation pass rate and I would like to see more children leaving school with qualifications sought by the business sector. I believe there is room for fruitful engagement with your Institute this regard and I would like to think of my Department's involvement with the Business Development Camp as merely a start.
Bursaries
In conclusion, I now address myself primarily to the learners who have participated in this year's Camp. I congratulate those who have received awards and to all of you I say: well done on being selected. You represent the cream of a category, which, in spite of disadvantagement, has shown an aptitude for accounting. By all accounts your enthusiasm and energy have been impressive, and I am sure you now have a clear vision of a potential career which would be materially rewarding to yourselves but would also serve your community and society as a whole. For the reasons I spelled out earlier, accounting skills, and the integrity of the accounting profession, are absolutely vital to the future of this country, both in the private sector and in government. I urge you to become part of it. You have the aptitude; otherwise you would not have been selected for this Camp. I urge you to grasp the opportunity. My Department does make bursaries available, so if you decide on a career in accountancy you should make a bursary application to my office so that you can be provided with education in this "scarce skills" category. It is over to you. A great and rewarding career could lie ahead of every one of you.
Ladies and gentlemen, I hope I have conveyed the regard I have for the accounting profession and the significance I see in the Business Development Camp. My thanks to your Institute for organising it and to all who arranged tonight's function.
I thank you for your attention.
Issued by KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Government
24 July 2003
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