BICA targets four-fold rise in chartered accountants
Pauline Dikuelo | Wednesday July 12, 2017 16:07
Launching their new five-year 2017- 2021 strategy recently in Gaborone, BICA president, Rudi Binedell said they aim to have about 42 BICA qualified chartered accountants by the end of their strategy period.
BICA has so far produced nine qualified chartered accountants since inception in 2010.
“The BICA qualification is not producing enough graduates hence the reason why the slow pace of graduation and the qualifications entry requirements need to be reviewed,” he said.
Binedell also targets to almost double the number of accountants registered with the institute to 5,962 by the end of the strategy period from the current 3,355.
The president also noted that one of their main threats is loss of membership to competing qualifications noting that the institute would need to develop a more robust customer value proposition.
“BICA would improve the credibility of the BICA brand as well as improve customer service and support and increase the number of benefits to members,” he said.
According to Binedell, they have identified some major concerns that need to be addressed on the new strategy. The launch followed on the back of the 2013-2016 strategy, which has just ended. He decried lack of monitoring on the regulation of non-audit firms saying that is critical.
Non-audit firms are firms, which offer all secretarial, book keeping and accounting services except audit assurance. Currently there are about 162 active non-audit firms in the country, which include Sleepteck, Reis just to mention a few, while PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), Grant Thornton and KPMG have both non-audit and audit firms.
“One of the major concerns for the achievement of this strategy is the regulation of non-audit firms which is not monitored. This is a critical issue,” he said.
He further said the penetration of the regional and international market is lacking adding that the financial support from government is not guaranteed in the future. He said that to ensure that their 2017-2021 strategic plan gets implemented, the key thing was to strengthen the BICA organisational structure, which was successfully implemented effective the beginning of this month.
“The new structure saw the introduction of new roles and the implementation of the Performance Management System (PMS),” he said.
The 2017-2021 strategy’s new vision is to support Botswana’s development through a dynamic and ethical accountancy profession unlike the previous one whose vision was ‘to be the leading accountancy profession body with an internationally recognised professional accountancy qualification’.
“This is a more of how we intend to help grow the country’s economy with the provision of a competitive accountancy profession for the needs of Botswana’s economy,” he said.
Further, he said the 2017-2021 strategy’s key strategic focus areas are enumerates as to increase revenue generation, increase registration of accountants in the country as well as enhance BICA qualification.
It intends to also strengthen partnership management, leverage on technology, improve the monitoring of non-audit firms, improve management skills through coaching and mentoring as well as improve talent management.