at the launch of KPMG Network of Women (KNOW), Sandton Convention Centre
13 June 2006
KPMG Chairperson, Moses Kgosana,
KPMG Executive Director and Director of KNOW SA, Tshidi Mokgabudi,
KPMG Board of Directors,
Chief Executive Officers of various companies,
Members of the business community,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen,
It is a pleasure and a privilege for me to be here with you tonight, when
KPMG launches its Network of Women initiative.
The launch of such a venture shows the companyâs seriousness and commitment
to issues of transformation particularly in the industry such as the one that
KPMG operates in. It is common knowledge that our country has a scarcity of
chartered accountants and this situation is even worse when it comes to women
chartered accountants and project managers. It is admirable that KPMG is
focussing on skilling women in these two priority areas of Accelerated and
Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (AsgiSA).
It is, therefore, a privilege to address a meeting full of chartered
accountants and it gives us hope about the future of our country. We are
hopeful that the priority skills that we have identified for our country will
be achieved when there are such targeted interventions in place.
KPMG is leap-frogging the competition by training women today to satisfy
future skills demands. Indeed, it is a fact that chartered accountants and
project managers are scarce globally so it is strategic to invest in local
talent.
It is also critical for us as we celebrate the 30th anniversary of the 1976
uprisings, to recall the struggles of many people and sectors that brought
democracy, the Womenâs March of 1956, is one such struggle. This is a fitting
tribute to the women who fought for our freedom that today we are placing women
in every sector and young women are proving their ability in competing with the
best.
The accounting sector is also being challenged to look at itself and its
industry and how it has contributed in ensuring that lives of young people
improve in our country.
I am on record for saying the scarcity of skills in global challenge. The
financial sector is one of the affected sectors in countries and companies,
which are serious about economic sustainability, Human Resources Development
(HRD) as a strategic investment failing which we are heading for a crisis where
skills shortages will impact on growth of economics, delivery of social
services and overall improvement of nations. It will take long sighted
companies who are responsible global citizens to invest in their own future and
their people.
South Africa has an army of youth who must be trained and absorbed into the
mainstream economy. Our economy cannot afford to have so many of our young
people who are going to waste. Starting with our unemployed graduates and
unemployed professionals. When more of our people acquire the right skills we
will be better placed to deal with the challenges facing our country. The
challenges facing all of us in South Africa include amongst others:
* eradication of poverty and underdevelopment
* economic growth and development and further strengthening of the first
economy
* development, modernisation and integration of the second economy into the
first and ending the marginalisation of those who subsist within this second
economy
* ensuring an integrated approach by all social partners to deal with the
challenge of skills development, concentrating on critical fields such as the
accounting profession
* enhancing the process of social cohesion and harmonising various processes at
the public, private and community levels to accelerate the building of a
non-racial and non-sexist society.
We live in exciting times; for three years in a row African economies have
grown on an average of five percent a year and this is expected to increase to
5,8 percent this year, the fastest in three decades. In accelerated and shared
growth we seek partnerships that will enable us to achieve these
objectives.
What we are doing today with KPMG is to give meaning to that partnership.
The threat to continued and shared growth is indeed the scarcity of some
critical skills. In the long term we need to drive a skills revolution in our
schools, tertiary institutions, companies etc.
We have already indicated that in short term we will:
* train middle level professionals and unemployed graduates at work, e.g. KPMG
initiative through placements
* further academic training
* ensuring that students who need internships before they graduate can get such
internships
* that all of the learner ships and training through agreements in Black
Economic Empowerment (BEE) Charter is achieved. Financial skills, project
managers, information communication technology (ICT) are amongst the scarce
cross cutting skill.
Lack of skills is one of the major threats to us achieving our economic
goals. Only through partnerships between the public sector, private sector,
Further Education Training (FET) institutions and labour can we overcome these
constraints. In fact, we need a global action on skills. In the Development
Goals (MDG) the issue of education is indeed highlighted. So is the empowerment
of women.
The work that KPMG is doing at the level of having the empowerment of women
as one of its key strategic goals falls squarely within our objective ,as
government, of skills development and in particular the scarce skills that are
required by our economy and in our quest to deliver on Maintenance Decision
Support System (MDSS).
As government, we are currently busy with the Auditing Profession Bill and
the Corporate Law Review process. This is an attempt to have a dispensation
that enhances the independence of the auditors and seeks further to ensure that
auditors are held accountable for their conduct. I am sure that you are
participating in this process so that we emerge with legislative framework that
embraces all our views.
We hope that this legislative framework will better enhance the development
of best ethics and practices in the sector.
The matter of standards in the profession is linked to the issues of ethics
and governance in the accounting and auditing profession. These mechanisms
would include constant monitoring and evaluation systems as well as your
on-going training and skills programmes.
I wish you well as you launch KNOW and hope that we will have a closer
co-operation in the future between ourselves as government and you as partners
in the future in meeting our common objectives of eradicating poverty and
creating a better life for all.
I thank you!
Issued by: The Presidency
13 June 2006
