Support needed to train CAs

Ogone Tlhage - The Institute of Chartered Accounts of Namibia (ICAN) says the government must help establish an educational programme for future chartered accountants, just as it did in the health sector with the University of Namibia's School of Medicine.

The comments were made by ICAN CEO Koos du Toit during a recent engagement.

According to him, it is expensive to train chartered accountants.

“There is a significant cost to running a Certificate in the Theory of Accounting (CTA) programme in Namibia. The medical profession got support from government and the auditing profession should be given the same commitment,” Du Toit said.

He said it was hard for the Institute to provide support and training for prospective chartered accountants, only to lose them to greener pastures in South Africa.

“You take a Namibian [student] to South Africa and they don't come back; for that CTA programme, we are going to need money, it costs a lot to train a chartered accountant,” Du Toit said.

Further compounding the shortage of CAs was the unattractiveness of the profession, said ICAN president Talitha Horn.

Statistics provided by ICAN for 2016, the latest to be compiled, show that there are only 537 qualified CAs registered with the body.

Of the total, the majority are white. ICAN numbers indicated that there were 239 white male CAs and 133 white female CAs.

There were 109 black male CAs and 69 black female CAs.

ICAN statistics also showed that one CA served a total of 4 283 Namibians. In South Africa there is one CA for 1 603 people and in Mauritius one CA for 464 people.