Global auditing firms exit, a blessing in disguise: Icaz

The Icaz president also revealed that the institute has assisted about 500 practitioners to get remote placements abroad as local companies struggle with new clients.
THE departure of global auditing giants like PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and Deloitte Africa from the country has created a window of opportunity for local firms to shine and take centre stage, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Zimbabwe (Icaz) has said.

The decline in consultancy business has seen the big four accountancy firms — KPMG, PwC, Ernst & Young and Deloitte — all scaling back on their presence in Zimbabwe.

This had been construed in some circles as an act of disapproval for the Zimbabwean business space.

“For me, it is a good opportunity for some of our local firms. I think sometimes there is a red tape that comes to our country as a result of other economic factors. But for me, I see it as an opportunity for our local firms,” Icaz president Brice Musendo told NewsDay Business on the sidelines of the Icaz Winter School held in Victoria Falls last week.

“The migration of some of the big four firms means they have bigger opportunities for the local firms and I think it is good to have local people who understand the local dynamics. The biggest issue that we had with some of the big four firms is [that] they didn’t understand the risk.

“They didn’t understand what is required in the environment and sometimes they thought that they were taking more risk than they can manage, but equally, local firms are also more than capable.”

Musendo said the industry had the capacity to take up the space left by these firms.

The Icaz president also revealed that the institute has assisted about 500 practitioners to get remote placements abroad as local companies struggle with new clients.

This has a knock-on effect on the number of students that the companies can take and train.

“I think in the UK, some of the people don’t even go to the offices and what our qualification gives is the technical skills and wherever we have been going, we may have had positive feedback on how our members are doing well in their various workplaces and it’s a skill that we can then maximise,” he noted.

“This skill is appreciated wherever we go. We have got the technical competencies, we have got the technical skills and therefore, getting the work will not be an issue given that our numbers already have built a strong reputation. So, we have about 500 people in the UK. So that’s the UK mainland and the Channel Islands, as well as Ireland.”

He said South Africa was also their next biggest chapter after the UK as most of the members were migrating to the neighbouring country.

“We have got a peculiar position in South Africa because we share the same qualification. So, it’s a straitjacket in terms of transferring from one country to the other, similar to Namibia.

“We do have the numbers, and I think it does make sense that people are also trained while they are still based in this environment. It also benefits the country rather than suffering from the pandemic.”

He said auditing firms in Zimbabwe are struggling to get new clients as a lot of companies were underperforming.

“One of the key things that a lot of companies are struggling with is new clients and it therefore has a knock-on effect on the number of students they can take and train,” he said.

“So, one of the things that we have been doing while we are on tour, particularly in the UK, was looking for opportunities for insourcing work into the country.

“We know that there are firms who are doing it already and it’s just an opportunity to connect our local firms with their global networks so that we can take more work and therefore create more capacity.”-newsday