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Membership > Member Profiles
Member Profile - Zethu Qunta: IPFA Chairperson What about family life?
I was born in the rural areas of Nkandla in KwaZulu-Natal and today I live in Durban with my husband and two kids, a boy and a girl. My family is my support base that makes it worthwhile for me to do what I do every day. We strongly believe in the love and the presence of God in our lives with Christ Jesus as our savior.
What do you do for a living?
From January 2006, I have been running my consulting firm with a mission to professionalise the operations of government at all levels by providing public sector management services, whilst supporting the SMME with a view of ensuring the development of the second economy in RSA. We have a number of qualified managers to undertake a varied spectrum of assignments and in all our assignments we endeavor to:
Exceed client expectations by ensuring that quality is our main focus;
Always seek innovative ways to provide our clients with strategic solutions;
Be adaptable in developing solutions to meet the needs of our clients;
Be inclusive and participative in our approach to build capacity in our clients;
Identify value added opportunities to place our clients on the top level of achievers.
What are your views on education and training?
As far as I can remember as a young girl I grew up knowing that education is the key to success. Fortunately, my family supported my educational efforts very well. I endeavor and I hope that I will be successful in influencing young people to treat their education as a priority over all other things that are competing for their time. If I were to promote education and professionalism, I had to be a role model, unlike a road sign that will indicate a direction to a place where it never was. For this reason, I tried to focus on education as much as I could given the resources and responsibilities that I had in the past. On matriculating in 1988, I was able to join the university community for a Bachelor of Administration degree, not my first choice though. This took me three years to complete. Having worked for two years I realized, it was not good enough to have just a first degree, so I joined the University of Pretoria for an Honours Degree (BCom Hons). This was done full time, after just one year I was done. In 1995, I registered for Masters Degree in Commerce, with the same university, this became a part time study, and hence, I took two (2) years to complete. I graduated in 1997. In 1999, I registered for an MBA degree also done part time with the University of Oxford Brookes; it was only completed in 2002. Being up to date professionally, and being able to contribute to the current issues of the day is viewed as an important aspect of life, hence, when corporate governance debate became the boardroom topic, I found myself compelled to do some research in this area and ensure that I have an understanding of the core issues about governance. Therefore, in 2005, I registered with the University of South Africa to do Corporate Governance studies, this was completed at the end of the same year. I do not feel that I am quite finished with the learned professors as yet and I hope to trouble them again with something else some other time.
When did you join IPFA?
In 2000, I was promoted to be the director for finance in the Department of Agriculture in KwaZulu-Natal. During this time, the need to professionalizing public finance staff became more apparent. During this time, there were no finance divisions within departments. Financial management was not an important function and the PFMA was just promulgated, hence, one had to ensure it is implemented in that kind of an environment. I needed all the resources I could get to develop public finance personnel.
Why did you join IPFA?
As the director for Finance at time, I had a responsibility to ensure that all my finance team members were able to perform within the shortest time. I saw IPFA as a vehicle that was going to assist me in my responsibility to empower finance staff.
What is the Role of IPFA in your view?
I understand the role of IPFA as that of setting the standard for education and training in the development of recognized professional qualifications and that of ensuring quality assurance of education and training in public finance, this is inclusive of professional ethics and conduct of members of the Institute. In short, the role of IPFA is two fold: ensuring that there are recognized qualifications for all public sector financial disciplines and that of Quality Assurance, which requires close working relations with ETQAs.
What about the role of chairperson for the Council?
Surprisingly, I was elected to be the vice chairperson in 2005, but, had always acted as chairperson. It is an important role, as being a leader in any structure requires added responsibility as well as accountability. Considering the level at which the Institute is at the moment, there are a number of decisions to be made which require maturity, integrity and foresight. The delivery members expect of the Institute is dependant on the kind of decisions that the council makes, hence, working as a team with all council members and being able to facilitate professional dialogue that will enable the Institute to be put on the map is critical. So far, I have not felt any burden by being the chairperson, because all the members of the council understand their responsibilities and are committed professionals. Having a shared vision as a council member has made my role as a chairperson to be easy and manageable.
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