The appointment of CIBA’s CEO Nicolaas van Wyk to the board of the South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SACCI) is another step in increasing the influence of accountants on the South African economy.

The South African Chamber of Commerce, the region’s most broadly based representative national business body, recently appointed Nicolaas van Wyk to its board.

Van Wyk sees this as another step in CIBA’s strategy of deploying an army of accountants to key parts of the South African economy to reclaim and restore areas lost during State Capture. 

“Our strategy is to engage with key institutions and associations and then sign MOUs (memorandums of understanding) with them. Then to deploy ourselves and our members within the organising structures of those institutions and chambers so that we can assist them. Especially when it comes to financial management because many of the problems that arose with state capture were related to financial management, fraud and corruption,” says van Wyk. 

“South Africa's economy will be better if we can build proper systems and better internal controls within each of these institutions and sectors.

CIBA has entered into a host of MOUs with a key institutions, including a multitude of Universities including UWC, Regenesys, UNISA SBL, professional bodies such as AICPA, CIMA, SAIT, IBASA, CIGFARO, and IPAR, and the Department of Social Development and ANNET. 

SACCI was founded in 1945 and is the oldest national business body in South Africa. 

Speaking on SACCI’s recent successes, Nonie Sibiya, manager of Corporate Services at SACCI says, “We promoted and were successful in convincing the Government to put out a proposal on their appointments being done on merit, and this was published in a Government Gazette in December 2021.” 

For its part, CIBA continues to advocate and assist with the professionalisation of the public services in South Africa as a way to improve service delivery and crack down on corruption.  

Van Wyk believes that MOUs and close cooperation with bodies such as SACCI will open markets up to CIBA members who can be meaningfully deployed. Recent examples of the deployment of CIBA's army of accountants is the 2022 SAIBA Roadshow where the Institute connected its members with municipalities, business chambers and national departments.

CIBA also recently hosted a Public Procurement Summit where the professionalisation of the procurement process was discussed by a panel of experts - a South African first.

The annual CIBA Practice Management Conference also brings together professional associations from sectors across the South African economy to align the "army of accountants" with these associations' financial management and control requirements.