Members of the Eastern, Central and
Southern African Federation of Accountants (ECSAFA) have decided to
wind up the federation later this year and enrol as members of the
Pan-African Federation of Accountants (PAFA) instead.

ECSAFA interim chief executive
Vickson Ncube remarked that the process has now started and members
voted to dissolve the professional body by 31 December.

“Technically there is no transition
as PAFA and ECSAFA are independent, separate and non-connected
organisations. One reason to close ECSAFA is the membership fees.
Many members cannot afford to pay the International Federation of
Accountants (IFAC), ECSAFA and PAFA membership fees. Paying two
membership fees to IFAC and PAFA is enough,” Ncube explained.

Established in 1989 and currently
headquartered at the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of
Kenya based in Nairobi, ECSAFA is the largest of the three regional
accounting federations serving Africa.

It has 16 full member countries,
which will all join PAFA, including Botswana, Burundi, Democratic
Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius,
Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia
and Zimbabwe. And five temporary members Angola, Eritrea,
Mozambique, Seychelles and Sudan.

“We started with about six
countries in the beginning and have grown since then. We are still
growing. Rwanda joined in 2009 and this year we have just admitted
Burundi. Now we are talking to the Seychelles,” Ncube said. “We
have six temporary members regarded as professions in transition as
their accounting institutes do not have the structure to run the
accounting profession in their country.

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“We noticed that countries with an
accounting profession are easier for donor countries and
organisations to work with because of financial accounting needs,
so we decided to develop those opportunities with our regional
neighbouring countries.”

Currently ECSAFA has observer
status with speaking rights at IFAC board meetings but not voting
rights. Ncube noted that ECSAFA’s council is requesting that IFAC
transfers these rights to PAFA.

Although sorry to vote for the
winding up of their own organisation, ECSAFA members are looking
forward to seeing their aims and targets being pursued under PAFA’s
leadership.

“We are very optimistic about PAFA in spite of all the
challenges,” Ncube said. “PAFA is a force for the good which
hopefully will result in more foreign investment in Africa and
foreign investors having more confidence in doing business in
Africa.”

See also:

Raising the
status