Southern Africa forum to promote best practice

A strategic management accounting forum has been set up in Southern Africa to make it easier to share information and best practice.

The group was the idea of three organisations - CIMA, the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA), and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Alfred Ramosedi, chairman, CIMA regional board Southern Africa, said: ‘The accounting profession is a broad and diverse discipline, with many variations and areas of specialisation. This is why we need a forum.’

Its aim will be to promote the discipline of management accounting with the following objectives:

• promotion of good strategic management accounting practices. This can be achieved firstly by identifying best practices in both Southern Africa and the rest of the world as well as in specific industries or sectors. Secondly it will aim to increase the amount of interaction between academia and the profession
• facilitating continuous professional development and education within management accounting, and
• facilitating the sharing of information on strategic management accounting.

Jan Labuschagne, SAICA’s Commerce and Industry Committee chairman, said: ‘Accounting practitioners are continually faced with technological, benchmarking, best practice, CPD and educational issues. The proliferation of disclosure requirements brought about by IFRS and Sarbanes-Oxley has led the profession to higher levels of specialisation and a tendency to focus on external stakeholders.’

Labuschagne said chartered accountants in commerce and industry have become increasingly aware of the need to embrace both financial and management accounting. The forum will help to bridge the gap between academia and practice.

December 2006