The department of trade and industry (dti) has gazetted the accountancy empowerment charter, the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (Saica) said on Wednesday.

"The Chartered Accountancy Profession's Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) Charter was published in the Government Gazette this week," Saica said in a statement.

The Charter, some six years in the making, promised to play a pivotal role in helping to solve the critical skills shortage in the accountancy profession revealed in a research exercise in 2008, SAICA said.

The research revealed that there was a shortage of 22 000 accountants.

"To create an environment in which economic growth may continue while facilitating effective transformation, the skills profile of our profession must move towards reflecting the country's demographics while still meeting growth needs and maintaining standards," said Tsakani Matshazi, chairman of the CA Charter Council and president of the Association for the Advancement of Black Accountants of Southern Africa.

"We are delighted that the Minister of Trade and Industry, Dr Rob Davies, has gazetted the CA Charter and express our thanks to all those who supported the process."

Matshazi emphasised the Charter's primary focus on skills development aimed at increasing the number of black, especially black women, chartered accountants in South Africa.

"Since 1976, only 1433 Africans have completed the requirements to register as a CA — a number that compares unfavourably with the total of 29 561 CAs.

"Active, large-scale intervention is required to redress the situation," Matshazi said.

Transformation would take too long if left purely to economic forces, he said.

The CA Charter had been drafted so it could be tailored to the profession's unique needs while simultaneously laying down BEE weightings that resembled the national BEE ratings and the dti's Codes of Good Practice, he said.

It was the vision of the charter "to grow the number of black people in the CA profession to reflect the country's population dynamics, to empower and enable them to meaningfully participate in and sustain the growth of the economy, thereby advancing equal opportunity and equitable income distribution," Matshazi said.

Matsobane Matlwa, executive president of SAICA, highlighted the CA Charter Council's broad representivity.

He suggested the Charter be viewed against the background of the many positive transformation dynamics already in progress.

These included the intake at South African universities that showed that whites were no longer the majority of prospective CAs.

"Indeed, the rate of prospective African CAs is climbing," Matlwa said.

He said that Thuthuka, SAICA's transformation initiative, had played, and continued to play, a vital role in accelerating the number of black CAs.

Matlwa said more females than males were passing the qualifying examination.

He said he was confident that the CA Charter would accelerate these "encouraging" trends.

The implementation of the Charter was the responsibility of a 12-member Charter Council that received secretarial and administrative support from Saica, he said.

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