ICAZ celebrates its senior members
AS preparations for the public launch in May this year, ICAZ hosted a lunch event to celebrate the men and women who had contributed their time and services to keep the Institute operating with integrity.
e then President of the Institute, Tumai Mafunga shared some thoughts that brought to the fore the importance of the teamwork that has brought ICAZ this far. Below is an excerpt of his speech:
As I look around the room I am awed by the weight of experience and integrity that is represented by each of you. To be named among you is truly a privilege and a great honour.
When the idea of hosting a luncheon for all ICAZ Seniors – past presidents and past CEOs of the Institute – it resonated with me immediately. It made perfect sense to me that we should spend time with those who have contributed so much to keep the wheels of ICAZ turning – each in his or her turn – and offer an update of the book that was mentioned during our Centenary Celebrations in 2018.
After all, it is YOUR book as it chronicles the events of the tough road that ICAZ has had to walk to become the highly regarded entity that it is today.
Events that were guided by each of you during your tenure in office. e fascination for me is how, in spite of the variety of personalities and leadership styles that is represented here, the integrity of what ICAZ stands for has been retained from one leader to the next.
When one is named president of ICAZ, there are two dominant emotions at play within them.
ere is the obvious excitement and honour at being afforded the opportunity to be at the helm of such an organisation.
Excitement about the opportunity to contribute one’s two cents; the opportunity to perhaps innovate one or two ideas that will enhance the position and the work of the organisation. e opportunity to engage at the highest support of the work of the institute.
On the other hand, there is also a deep anxiety. An anxiety born out of the realisation of the weight that now rests on your shoulders. I want to believe that I’m not alone in having had that anxiety. However capable an individual may be, when one is elected to represent an organisation such as ours, it is an enormous vote of confidence from the membership and one feels the weight of it.
You start your presidency with an acute awareness that you have been trusted to not only keep the ship afloat, but to ensure that you steer it in the right direction, adding value to it as you go – sometimes navigating through very uncertain environments. You don’t want to be the one to drop the ball.
As I have considered the ICAZ Centennial Book, I noted that there are presidents that led the organisation through a lot of key moments in its history.
Someone had to lead as the Institute became autonomous where, before, the accounting professional was managed from South Africa.
Someone had to decide that exams could now be conducted locally without compromise to the quality of the professional that would be produced. Someone was in office when the parameters of who could be recognized as a chartered accountant was legislated along with the responsibilities they would carry.
Someone was in office when the first black chartered accountant was appointed, opening the door to broadening the scope and reach of the profession.
Someone was in charge when the decision to open international chapters was made, making the Zimbabwean chartered accountant an international player and positioning ICAZ among the best professional bodies of the world.
With such an illustrious history, no one wants to drop the ball and be recorded as the president during whose tenure things started going wrong.
e fact that we are in this room today, getting ready to celebrate the ICAZ Centennial Book launch is evidence that, over a 100 year period, the ball has never been dropped! at is an incredible feat, ladies and gentlemen, and some of the people who have made that feat possible are right here in this room. I applaud and celebrate you!
When I became president of ICAZ, I was, of course, aware that the institute was a hundred years old. I just didn’t fully grasp the deeper meaning of that fact until I saw and browsed through the book that Mr Nyasha Zhou and his research team has been working on over the past few years.
eoretically understanding and conceptualising the history of ICAZ and reading it in black and white with pictorial records of people, places and documents are two very different things.
For me, the ICAZ Centennial Book has brought back to life all the work of the last one hundred years, immortalising it and giving it a place and a voice into the future.
is is vitally important as it is a key way of connecting our newest students with the guiding principles that inspired those who founded the institute a century ago.
at student can read about the challenges, the drive and victories and carry a certain pride that they are now a member of such an organisation.
at, ladies and gentlemen, is where the continuity of a positive organisational narrative begins.
I am glad and honoured to be president in office as we launch this historic book – one that, I’m made to understand, is the only one of its kind for a professional membership organisation in Zimbabwe. It is not only a celebration and recognition of the institute. It is a celebration of you and the part you have played in preserving the integrity of our profession.