WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2010-04-06 Time: 11:00:01 Posted By: News Poster
By Katy Chance
Johannesburg – VICTOR Sekese is CEO of SizweNtsaluba VSP, described on its website as “one of the few indigenous accounting firms that survived the harsh realities of the past”.
In apartheid terms, Sekese’s own past was fairly standard: there were the generalities of oppression and indignity, but nothing too personal or specific. Sekese is admirably stoic about it all.
“I grew up in Mamelodi near Pretoria and went to a local school. It was difficult in the usual apartheid way, but relatively smooth in terms of schooling. There wasn’t a year ‘wasted’, it was only at the University of Zululand in my first year that the waste started. The varsity shut down for the entire year due to student protests.”
He matriculated in 1983 when things were “very bleak” but remembers that during his last two years, when “getting teachers was a problem”, white teachers were brought in.
“There was special transport for them, armoured vehicles, to bring them into the townships. Generally, they genuinely wanted to be there. I could feel there was a lot of sympathy and empathy – but they couldn’t show it, obviously. They could get reported.”
When Sekese finally did finish that first year, his credits enabled him to get a bursary in 1985 from Tongaat-Hulett to go to Wits, where he completed a BCom and a BAcc.
He was supposed to work for the company for every year of his bursary, but sheepishly admits it didn’t happen that way, so he had to pay them back.
“To qualify as a CA (SA) and be an auditor you had to complete your articles with an auditing firm. I asked my sponsors if I could do them with Deloittes, and I did.”
He had worked for both Tongaat-Hulett and Deloittes during vacations as a student, and was “well received and given a chance”, but found it a different experience when doing his articles.
“I just didn’t get the same exposure as a white intern in terms of job content or the quality of clients. Most clerks get allocated a core portfolio which they stay with for the three years. I, and other blacks, weren’t given one. We became ‘add-ons’, assigned to assist with other portfolios, so we were always floating around.”
After three years a group leader did “confess” to Sekese he had been unfairly treated – although Sekese allows it was a by-product of apartheid rather than an individual’s or company’s policy. “But this admission actually made me more angry and eager to leave. Leaving the audit profession at that time was done as a protest.”
This was particularly frustrating for a man who had education “hammered into him” from an early age. His father was a teacher, who qualified late – his early years were spent as a domestic helper. “But he worked his way up, even within the school system,” says Sekese. “He became a principal and senior manager with the then Transvaal education department.” Sekese’s mother was a health worker for a local clinic and both parents, he says, were very hard working and civic minded.
“My father was very pro-education. ‘You shall study – there is no alternative,’ was the message. A lot of my peers dropped out of school, then varsity, but we were ‘encouraged’ to stay. And my father used his own life constantly as an example – which is difficult to argue with! He could have been just another gardener, but he wouldn’t let circumstances dictate his future, and I use that as a life principle: to soldier on regardless.”
Which is what he maintains SizweNtsaluba is pretty much having to do now.
The company was founded in 1985 and Sekese joined as audit manager in 1994 after working for the “very progressive BMW” as a divisional financial accountant. Since the 1980s he has been a member of Abasa, the Association for the Advancement of Black Accountants, and still sits on its board.
Before 1994, the company could do auditing work only for black entrepreneurs and nongovernmental organisations. But after democracy a lot of them closed their doors and “we had to change strategy. We started with the government. We thought ‘They’ll be sympathetic, it’ll be easy.’ That’s what we thought..
“Their first big break came in 1996 when the then minister of public enterprises appointed us joint auditors for Transnet, obliged to work with one of the ‘big four’ of the auditing world, Ernst & Young.
“We had to roll up our sleeves and work hard, because people were still sceptical of our skills. We needed to manage risk of failure and recruit the best calibre staff and invest heavily in systems. And we did very well. But the minister said ‘No black firm was big enough’ to do it alone so we had to team up and APF – Abasa Practitioners Forum – was created to give us all more clout.”
And it paid off. SizweNtsaluba works with Eskom and Denel and still works with Transnet. That’s three big parastatals on its books and the company employs more than 500 people and is represented nationwide – so I wonder why Sekese has a bit of an axe to grind. Because, he says, with the current auditing environment, if you’re not part of the big four, it’s got as good as it’s going to. The ceiling has been reached.
“It’s not only us but an international concern. The US Securities and Exchange Commission is also worried about the concentration of the audit market.”
And when he says “us”, Sekese is not only talking about his company – although he confesses to a vested self-interest – but all black audit firms that arose through Abasa and APF.
“There used to be a big eight, then a big six, and now, with the demise of Arthur Andersen, regulators and others are asking what would happen if another one went? It may be unlikely – but it would be disastrous.”
This issue has come up before. The big four are not doing anything wrong, nobody’s crying foul or mumbling about a monopoly; isn’t it just a bit of sour grapes at their good marketing?
Sekese laughs: “Nobody’s denying how good they are at all of that, but unfortunately perception is reality. A few years ago a CEO of a listed entity told me he likes our company and is aware of our capabilities, but he ‘cannot engage’ with us because his company is listed, and he needs to be sensitive to his investor community and shareholders who are ‘more comfortable’ when the audit report is signed off by one of the big four.”
And the notion that smaller, darker firms aren’t up to the task is, as Sekese points out, taken care of by SA’s stringent regulatory environment.
The Independent Regulatory Board for Auditors undertakes rigorous and “very expensive” audits of the industry and the JSE is itself a form of regulator as, two years ago, they created their own accreditation requirements. And SizweNtsaluba, like many others, is fully accredited.
“But what’s the point if we are still sidelined for not being ‘big enough’? The last time I counted, I’m not sure when it was, only one of the top 40 on the JSE used an audit firm other than one of the big four.”
Sekese says the issue can clearly no longer be left to market forces to self-adjust, and that rather like social transformation, it now needs to be legislated. Not that he expects the big four to shrink for others’ benefit.
“This is not a finite pie. The economy is growing again and all we’re saying is the market should trust its own exacting regulatory environment. And if it doesn’t, perhaps it should be forced to. We need to look at what is good in terms of the country’s economy and put everyone’s mind at ease that the auditing load and risk is spread. With the recession, we’ve seen nothing is so big it cannot be toppled.”
Original Source: 
Original date published: 6 April 2010
Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/201004060399.html?viewall=1