Do you believe in witch doctor's?

TNaicker Wrote:

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> Countrymember Wrote:
>
> > When did Ms M Ramos get her CA?........is this
> > very recent?.......when I worked with her she
> > never had one then!.
>
> I remember reading it in an article some time ago
> but cannot source it now...I stand
> corrected...could have been embellishing by the
> writer...
>
> Just checked SAICA website and couldn't find as
> search facility is area based...I did find myself
> though !!

(tu) Cheers......I also saw you on the SAICA site ( that's if your first name ends in a j ?)...........

Countrymember Wrote:

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> (tu) Cheers......I also saw you on the SAICA
> site ( that's if your first name ends in a j
> ?)...........

Yes, that's me...don't know how I ended up at the top of the search list :S...not like Google where companies pay to be prominent in searches !!!

Is the story about being an electrician true. If so it's news to me.
His brother is a school principal in Pmb

agra Wrote:

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> Is the story about being an electrician true. If
> so it's news to me.
> His brother is a school principal in Pmb

Again, something I read some time back...cannot confirm veracity thereof...

Did a search and found the following:

He holds the following academic qualifications : -

Ø Matriculated from Harold Cressy High School, Cape Town.

Ø National Diploma in Civil and Structural Engineering as a sandwich course at the Peninsula Technikon. :S

Ø Executive Programme Course, Stanford National University, Singapore.

And from another source...

Manuel attended Harold Cressy High School and matriculated in 1973. He moved on to work for a construction company for nearly 8 years. He was promoted to civil engineering technician, but decided to resign from his position in 1981 to volunteer as a community organiser for the Cape Areas Housing Committee (CAHAC).

Although he was lauded, it needed a team of people in the background to actually do the work and he was the person who signed off the financing component of the infamous Arms Deal...

agra Wrote:

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> gregbucks Wrote:
>

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>

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> > Hopefully you not part of the bones
> ceremony..()
>
> The last time I went to one... see what happened
> to united... LOL

Now you know what to do for next season - stay at home (tu)

What's wrong with a pharmacist and and electrician managing the mininstry of finance? So what? Believe me, I have interviewed several SAICA's who could not calculate simple forex sums.

Mac Wrote:

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> What's wrong with a pharmacist and and electrician
> managing the mininstry of finance? So what?
> Believe me, I have interviewed several SAICA's who
> could not calculate simple forex sums.

I will second that.

There is NO substitute for experience

Mac Wrote:

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> What's wrong with a pharmacist and and electrician
> managing the mininstry of finance? So what?
> Believe me, I have interviewed several SAICA's who
> could not calculate simple forex sums.

Then you probably interviewing those that wrote the Board Exam after 1999...SAICA, in 1997/1998 was under immense pressure to improve the demographics of the profession and embrace transformation with the result that the SAICA did a few things to increase the numbers:
- split the Part 1 and 2 exams and gave credit for any part passed...prior to 2000, three 5 hour papers in three consecutive days and ALL three had to be passed in one sitting
- allowed open book exams
- changed the university post-graduate passing requirements...

The result is that there are CA(SA)'s that have not genuinely earned the qualification and strut around with a ship on their shoulder as if they deserve respect when it has not been earned...their arrogance and ignorance does a disservice to the profession and those that genuinely earned their spurs...

I served my articles at KPMG from 1998 to 2001 and when you started articles, your technical knowledge was expected to be most up to date...the senior partners made it their mission to catch you out...that cannot be said of current day university graduates who have been pushed through the system otherwise they cannot get to the point of writing the Board Exams and cannot get the numbers of CA's qualifying...technical knowledge of those leaving university nowadays is poor with resultant poor application...I don't know about other professions so I'll stick to making comments about the accounting profession...

The problem with having a pharmacist (with communist indoctrination) and an electrician managing the ministry of finance is that you need a phalanx of properly qualified people to actually do the job at great cost...but I guess that governments are bureaucratic so what should we expect...we have non-financial managers "managing" billions of rands and we have a public outcry every time there is tender fraud, corruption, unspent capital budgets, inefficiencies, etc...get the right people to do the job and there is enough money for everyone's needs rather than a few people's greed...and it starts at the very top...create a culture of excellence and competence and it will permeate every level below...be comfortable with the lowest common denominator and the evidence is there to see...

Even the apartheid government saw fit to have properly qualified people managing finances...Chris Stals had a Doctorate in Economics...Barend du Plessis had a Masters in Accounting or Economics and the budget they worked with was 1/10th what it is now and we see no need to have a person with a finance qualification entrusted with how efficiently it is spent...would you have a lawyer in charge of healthcare ?? No, because you would want some-one who is au fait with the topic at hand leading the conversation...

So, that's my rant for today...

Yes, as soon as you have subordinates who know more than you do, you are a baby in their hands. They can fool you and use your signature and you won't even realise it's being done. Happens at all levels.

When you also don't care, then the situation becomes really toxic.