Awards honour SA’s standout performers
The numbers stack up for top achievers in accounting, writes Alf James
On October 11, the SA Institute of Professional Accountants (Saipa) hosted its Top Achievers’ Awards ceremony at The Wanderers Club in Illovo, Johannesburg.
The gala lunch and awards ceremony was held to recognise remarkable performance across three separate Saipa programmes — the National Accounting Olympiad, the Accounting and Tax Thesis competition and Saipa’s Professional Evaluation.
According to Zobuzwe Ngobese, marketing and business development executive at Saipa, a combined celebration was decided on to create greater synergy.
“Bringing all these achievers together in one place resulted in a multifaceted function, more prestigious than we would achieve by hosting them separately,” he said.
The first set of awards was presented to top performers in the National Accounting Olympiad. The olympiad is held annually at participating schools across SA. Grade 11 and 12 pupils who pass a first round of written tests advance to a final round. From this last division, pupils with the highest marks nationally are declared first, second or third-place winners. This year, 13 students were positioned in the top three spots.
From grade 12, AI Moosa of Scottburgh High School in KwaZulu-Natal took first place. In second was R Parker (Rondebosch Boys High, Western Cape). Third place saw a four-way tie between D Vanmari (Westville Boys High School, KZN), A Mohamed (Orient Islamic School, KZN), NL Dube (Edenglen High School, Gauteng) and EM Pillay (Stanger Manor Secondary, KZN).
In grade 11, MT Mowzer (Fairbairn College, Western Cape), KJ Becker (Richards Bay Christian School, KZN) and TJ Murphy (Rondebosch Boys High, Western Cape) all tied for first. T Naidoo (Avonford Secondary School, KZN) came second. Third was a tie between JK Knopfmacher (King David High School, Gauteng), JD de Kock (Rondebosch Boys High, Western Cape) and JA Freeman (Stirling High, Eastern Cape).
The olympiad is an important initiative for Saipa because it not only encourages potential accountants to demonstrate their skill, but the resulting media coverage offers the public greater exposure to the accounting profession.
The second set of awards went to the Accounting & Tax Thesis competition winners. For this contest, a panel of experts in the accounting and tax fields review papers submitted in the pursuit of a PhD, master’ sor honours degree. Those judged to have the most significant analyses at each level are declared the winners. Saipa believes that by giving these thought leaders the recognition they deserve beyond academia, new insights into taxation and accounting science can find their way to practical application in the business world.
In the accounting category, Corrie Cloete, who is doing a PhD at Northwest University on the development of a small-tomedium-enterprise (SME) risk analysis tool for professional accountants, was awarded R20,000, while Waheeda Mohamed, who is doing her master’s at the University of the Witwatersrand on international financial reporting standards for SMEs won R15,000.
For the taxation category, Jacqueline Arendse from Rhodes University received R20,000 for her PhD entry, “An investigation into the introduction of a new wealth tax in SA”. The University of Johannesburg’s Ivette du Toit’s master’s entry on “Transfer pricing legislation in SA: challenges in compliance”, earned her R15,000, while R10,000 was awarded to honours student Tayla Stocks from the University of Cape Town who is doing a critique on VAT on interactive gambling.
Finally, those who achieved top marks for their Professional Evaluation were presented with their awards. This is a threehour written exam those applying for Saipa membership must take before being admitted to the institute’s ranks.
From the November 2017 sitting, top graduate Ashrika Singh was presented with R13,000. In second place, Riette Snyman received R9,500 and Lente Steyn was awarded R7,500 for third. The same prizes were given to first-place winner Carla Briers, Adelaide Joao in second and Kevin Schou in third for the May 2018 sitting.
A complete list of winners is at https://www.saipa.co.za/ saipa-top-achievers-in-2018/