ICAZ rallies accountants to adopt AI
Lewanika Timothy | Tuesday July 25, 2023 06:00
JP Morgan Chase consultant, Tadiwa Mubvumbi said when speaking at the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Zimbabwe’s (ICAZ) Winter School held here last week. ICAZ is Zimbabwe’s oldest professional accounting body and the organisation holds its annual Winter School’s in different countries around the region.
The Winter School attracted over 300 delegates who met under the auspices of being empowered to further their accounting skills and professional acumen in a world that is increasingly becoming digital.
The Winter School, serves as a flagship annual event of the Institute, bringing together ICAZ members to share experiences and stay updated on business, economic, and professional matters. This year’s Botswana’s edition event was dubbed, “Leadership, Impact, Opportunities and Growth”.
Mubvumbi said the world is evolving and accountants must strive to not find themselves at the short end of the digitisation stick.
“We must brace for change and shift our focus to how we can incorporate enhancers like Artificial Intelligence to our profession,” he said.
Mubvumbi further said that international financial institutions have not shied away from adopting AI in their daily business operations and there was no reason why African accountants and institutions should not catch up.
“Investment banks in the United Kingdom now use Artificial intelligence for an array of operations in the banking sector and there is no reason why we should not do it as well,” he said.
CEO at African investment firm, Masawara Group Holding, Shingai Masawara, said there are growing concerns of accountants seeking to flee African countries and preferring to work in Western countries. He said this is detrimental to Africa as the continent loses its much-needed human capital.
“As we ready for the Africa continental Free Trade Agreement, we will need accountants to create a system for managing investments and economic growth, but we cannot achieve that if all the accountants have fled to western countries,” he said.
For her part, Botswana Institute of Charted Accountants (BICA) CEO, Verily Molatedi, revealed that of their foreign members, 244 were from Zimbabwe, a strong presence that demonstrates how the partnership between ICAZ and BICA should be strengthened further.
Molatedi further revealed that Botswana for the longest time has been depending on a lot of foreign technical assistance especially in fields such as accounting but with time that narrative has since changed with the country developing its own accountants and harnessing the accounting value needed in the country.
“We have improved from dependence on foreign specialists in accounting and we anticipate that younger Batswana will take up accounting in their studies and further their skills much to the benefit of this country,” she said.
In Botswana alone, ICAZ contributes 60% of the accounting professionals within various industries, a number which is growing yearly.