FROM THE PEN Change and Risk There’s definitely an enormously huge shift happening to the world as we know it. Not only are we experiencing climate changes and excessive electricity hikes, which will either cripple us or lend themselves to more energy efficient households, and an unusually well performing property sector as far as Mergers…
DetailsFROM THE PEN Reflections The time of Nelson Mandela’s release from Victor Verster prison in 1990, Mac Maharaj said that our released hero looked “quite somber, not celebratory, not pumping the air and jumping about like a victorious boxer, but walking very sternly, and I think I saw a sense of bewilderment in him”. Many…
DetailsFROM THE PEN A tribute to Ken Walton When we first started the column Death and Taxes nearly ten years ago, who would have thought that it would become one of the journal’s most popular columns? Thought provoking, provocative, thoroughly entertaining, and always educational, Penelope Webb’s articles definitely went against the grain of what many…
DetailsClassic, luxury, and sporty are not commonly used in the same sentence when referring to sedans. However, the Maserati , I believe, has broken the mould when it comes to exclusive luxury. The quattroporte is effectively a four door version of the drop dead gorgeous Maserati GT (2 door). These vehicles are still hand built and…
DetailsIf you were to ask me what I view as SAICA’s prime priority, I’d identify it as the maintenance of the highest standards. Virtually all our activities are directed towards this end; it is, indeed, our “raison d’être”. During the course of striving to meet this mandate, we regularly conduct reality checks; something akin to…
DetailsNetworking as a career management strategy is important as the burden of responsibility for one’s career has shifted from the organisation to the individual, with the notion of employability becoming one’s career goal. Moreover, more and more corporate, government and other organisations see building social capital as an organisational priority. Social capital is ‘the structure…
DetailsThe recently published King Report on Governance for South Africa 2009 (King III) is very good at telling us what we knew all along but failed to do anything about. It is also very appropriately timed – coming in the midst of the biggest economic crisis in many years. After all, the crisis was allegedly…
DetailsTeaching is depressing. Every year, my baldness spreads, my bones calcify, my ear-hair sprouts, and every year, the students walk into class exactly the same age as they were the year before. The other day, a female student waited for everyone else to leave after class, and then told me sweetly that she had a…
DetailsIf you were to ask me what I view as SAICA’s prime priority, I’d identify it as the maintenance of the highest standards. Virtually all our activities are directed towards this end; it is, indeed, our “raison d’être”. During the course of striving to meet this mandate, we regularly conduct reality checks; something akin to…
DetailsCONSOLIDATION OF ZIMBABWEAN SUBSIDIARIES On 29 January 2009, following a period of chronic hyperinflation associated with the Zimbabwean dollar, the acting Finance Minister of Zimbabwe announced that Zimbabwean entities would be permitted to trade in foreign currency. As a result, Zimbabwean entities no longer consider the Zimbabwean dollar to be their functional currency. During the…
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