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This article was first published in the February 2016 international edition of Accounting and Business magazine.

Twenty-five years ago, Rajesh Mahabeer FCCA would not have been allowed to visit whites-only game reserves in South Africa. Today he is the CFO of South African National Parks (SANParks), steering the finances of Africa’s largest conservation organisation, and raising funds to protect the country’s rhino population.

His accounting journey started in 1979 when, straight out of school, he had to start working. After finding a job as a trainee accountant at a small retailer, he studied part-time and it was this experience that motivated him to eventually qualify as a professional accountant. ‘It was a route that was difficult, yet very, very enriching, in the sense that I gained both practical experience and the theoretical side at the same time.’

As a result, Mahabeer has high praise for the flexibility of the ACCA Qualification. ‘With the world being as complex as it is, the route to qualifying must be as flexible as possible to accommodate the different situations that people find themselves in.

What I think is most positive about the qualification is that it has that level of flexibility which, since I qualified, has improved even more, he says.

Students today, he adds, want to be ‘educated on a laptop, and through virtual learning’, which allows them to study at their own pace, maintaining their independence while remaining connected to the rest of the world.

‘The way the ACCA Qualification is offered brings with it a huge level of flexibility and accessibility,’ he says. ‘It also recognises prior learning, so it enables students to get to the next level. And they also keep the qualification relevant and to a global standard.’

Benefits of qualification

As CFO of a large and complex organisation, Mahabeer uses all the technical competencies that come with the qualification in the compilation of annual financial statements and interpretation of technical accounting standards. He also uses the strategic elements of the qualification to link the financial impact of business decisions with the organisation’s strategic needs.

Mahabeer is responsible for SANParks’ entire financial portfolio, supply chain management and fundraising. The organisation recently secured a ZAR255m (US$16m) donation from the Howard G Buffett Foundation to combat rhino poaching, which is rife, especially in the two-million hectare Kruger National Park in the north-east of the country. ‘This has enabled us to bring technological interventions to the fight against rhino poaching. These have proved to be effective, although the challenges remain.’

Mahabeer is unable to reveal much about these interventions for security reasons, but he says the donation enabled SANParks to buy two Airbus-manufactured night-flying helicopters.

‘The ranger corps in Kruger now numbers about 450 and they have been trained especially against rhino poaching. The pilots we employ are very skilled and specialised,’ he says.


The fight against rhino poaching is one of many vital conservation projects run by SANParks. Mahabeer says: ‘We do many good things and complex things, but at the end of the day it’s for the people of the country. How can we tell our children to go to London Zoo to see a rhino, when we are the home of rhinos but we do not protect them?’

Born in the city of Durban on the eastern coast of South Africa, he did his audit training with a small firm and was determined to take advantage of every opportunity to learn and grow in his field.

‘This was supported by the education I had through ACCA, which ensured I was equipped for the different competencies in business,’ he says. ‘The other thing that ACCA does quite effectively is to ensure continued professional development through virtual online courses, so it ensures your relevance and competency in the various areas that you need to work on.’

Mahabeer chose to work at SANParks not so much out of a love for wildlife – which he didn’t have much access to as a child because of the then whites-only policy in the country’s games reserves – but because of his passionate belief that South Africa’s wildlife parks should be enjoyed by all of the country’s people. He believes this must start with schoolchildren, who will then grow up appreciating nature and wildlife.

‘We need more black animal scientists, veterinarians, conservationists, tourism experts and visitors in the parks. Slow gains are being noticed, with an increasing number of black visitors,’ he says. ‘We create innovative ways of empowering communities living around the parks, so we are driving a healthy component of corporate social investment programmes.’ For example, one of the camps in the Kruger National Park is owned and run by the descendants of a community which was forced off the land when the park was created.

‘We drive transformation generally with specific reference to uplifting neighbouring communities, and we are developing cadet and junior ranger programmes to get schoolchildren into the parks,’ he says.

Another initiative now being developed is aimed at ensuring future visitors have access to interpretative centres. ‘For example, at the Golden Gate Highlands National Park, we are developing a dinosaur interpretative centre. A few years ago, dinosaur eggs were discovered in the area,’ he says. ‘There are a number of these centres, including Elephant Hall at the Letaba camp in the Kruger Park, and one in the Mapungubwe National Park, a world heritage site, which depicts the lives of the Mapungubwe people, who traded with the east coast of Africa a thousand years ago.’

The country’s national parks play a key role in the government’s expanded public works programme, which employs 5,000 people on a temporary basis to work in the parks on projects including clearing alien vegetation. Some of the wood that is cleared away is then used in the Department of Environmental Affairs’ eco-furniture programme, which produces items such as school desks.

Mahabeer says programmes such as these make a significant contribution to social empowerment in economically depressed areas. South Africa’s economy has been battered by reduced demand for mineral resources on the global markets, and many of the mines affected are in the rural provinces in which the parks are situated.

‘The parks are seen as an economic hub for neighbouring communities, and one needs to bring one’s financial skills to bear to ensure that these important things happen. People are looking to parks for jobs. The country depends on them,’ he says.

‘What ACCA has done for me is to give me an appreciation that being an accountant is beyond debits and credits; it is really about dealing with people and their needs in the most responsible manner.’ 
He adds that an organisation as complex and large as SANParks requires ‘very advanced financial skills in order to captain it from a financial and clean governance perspective’.

Mahabeer, who was recently appointed to the ethics committee of South Africa’s Independent Regulatory Board for Auditors, the governing body for external auditors in South Africa, has also been asked by government to serve on an integrated reporting forum called the General Reporting Initiative which is looking at the third King Report on corporate governance and how it should be applied to the public sector.

Mentoring role

Also illustrative of Mahabeer’s passion for transformation is the time he spends mentoring young black accountants.
’I am very passionate about the education of aspiring black accountants who wish to qualify to professional accountancy level by mentoring them, coaching and helping them with content specific to their studies. I spend a lot of time in that space,’ he says. He mentors close to 20 people, sometimes in groups, sometimes individually.

‘I think we all have to develop a passion for doing all we can to ensure we have more black qualified accountants in the country,’ he says. ‘We need to urgently transform the accountancy profession in South Africa and it is going to be incumbent upon the more experienced qualified accountants to play that role.’
This is perhaps why he is such an advocate for the ACCA Qualification, which gives young black students from poor backgrounds a shot at an accounting career.

‘For me, what is an absolute gem is that ACCA has open access. They don’t say that because you didn’t get three As and three Bs in your school leaving examinations you can’t qualify as an accountant. No. They put you through a bridging programme.

‘You can get a guy packing shelves in a supermarket studying towards the ACCA Qualification subject by subject until he qualifies. And then he can go to the auditor-general’s office and do his audit training, qualify, and then he’s done. Who can deny him a good job after that?
The ACCA Qualification should be seen as an opportunity for the masses to be educated and trained, and to qualify to the highest global standard.’

Nicki Gules, assistant editor, City Press, South Africa