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Officials from South Africa follow proceedings during a meeting at NUST in Bulawayo recently

Nqobile Tshili, Business Correspondent
THE National University of Science and Technology’s (Nust) department of accounting has been given five years to set up an independent chartered accountant programme.

Nust has engaged South Africa’s North West University to assist it in setting up the programme.

On Wednesday, the two universities, Institute of Chartered Accountants Zimbabwe and Southern African Institute of Chartered Accountants met at Nust to assess whether the institution was fit for accreditation.

ICAZ education committee chairperson said Mr Arthur Mubaiwa said they were happy with the progress and were expecting Nust to independently offer the programme in five years’ time.

He said it was good that Nust was working with North West University as the South African university will provide expert advice to the local institution.

Mr Mubaiwa said their wish was to see Nust graduating to be an independent provider of chartered accountants certificates.

“Within a period of five years we want to see concrete plans from Nust, to say this is how we intend to move away from North West, because we believe that if they receive a mean over five year period they should be in a position to confidently say we can do it on own our. So after about five years we expect to see changes,” said Mr Mubaiwa.

He said Nust will be the second institution to offer the programme in the country after the Chartered Accountants Academy in Harare.

Mr Mubaiwa said bringing the programme to Nust will result in many aspiring students enrolling for the programme.

“Chartered Accountants play an important role in the economy through financial accounting, management accounting, strategic issues and so forth. So we expect that if more students have this programme our influence in the economy will improve,” said Mr Mubaiwa.

Nust’s chairperson for accounting department Mr Dumisani Madzivanyati said the university was ready to set the ball rolling saying their first enrolment could be next year.

He said having the programme will also boost Nust’s ranking among universities.

“As Nust family we’re pleased to be part of this big initiative and I hope it will enhance our university’s ranking, standing and participation in most of these forums involving chartered accountants,” he said.

— @nqotshili.