Overcoming barriers: black African chartered accountants in 1990s South Africa

This paper examines the experiences of black Africans in South Africa who became Chartered Accountants in the 1990s. Building on previous work on marginalized groups within the accounting profession, the study relies on interviews with 22 of those who overcame steep educational, economic, racial, cultural, and political obstacles to join a profession that had fewer than 1% black Africans as members. The interviews indicate that those black Africans who did manage to become CAs in the 1990s shared many common characteristics and experiences. They and their families placed a high value on education and made tremendous sacrifices to meet the requirements to earn the CA certification. Many overcame extreme poverty in their childhoods and attended poorly equipped schools. All were exceptionally accomplished academically, most qualifying for scholarships offered only to the very top black African students in the country. Most faced educational disruptions due to boycotts and political protests that shut down schools and many black universities in the years immediately prior to the bringing down of the apartheid regime. All faced racial discrimination in housing and education. Few had ever met a chartered accountant before enrolling in university; many had never heard of the certification until that point. In the 1990s when they entered some of the major firms to meet their training requirements, they were typically not given the same opportunities as their white peers. Now that they have become Chartered Accountants, and the government has changed and instituted affirmative action policies, most find that they are often offered jobs outside of public accounting. Still only composing about one percent of all chartered accountants, in a country that is 75% black African, most believed that the main road towards overcoming this disparity is through radical efforts to equalize educational opportunities in South Africa across racial lines. Most make professional decisions based at least in part on the opportunities a given position offers towards contributing to the black community.


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Estimating post-release survival and the influential factors for recreationally caught Black Bream (Acanthopagrus butcheri) in the Glenelg River, south eastern Australia

Black bream (Acanthopagrus butcheri) is the main target species amongst the estuarine recreational fisheries of Victoria, Australia. The A. butcheri fishery is managed through legal-minimum length and daily bag limits. The success of this management strategy requires that the survival rate for released fish is high. This study used the most common angling practices to estimate post-release survival and identify influential factors for undersized A. butcheri in Victoria. In total 1557 and 923 A. butcheri were caught and monitored for initial (≤1 h) and delayed (72 h) survival, respectively. Fish were caught across 3 years, with each year separated into cold and warm water periods with 8 fishing trial days in total. Only 1 of the 266 controls used to assess confinement effects died. Total survival was 95% (S.E. ± 0.8%) for shallow- and 74% (S.E. ± 3%) for deep-hooked fish and decreased as fish length increased. A post-mortem (PM) procedure was developed and showed that throat and gill injuries were the most frequent cause of deep-hooking death. It revealed that 97% of hooks left in fish remained there after 72 h and identified hooking location inaccuracies recorded at the time of capture. Total survival for deep-hooked fish was 20% higher when hooks were left in the fish. Deep-hooked fish were more likely to bleed when hooks were removed and total survival was lower for fish that bleed (58%) than fish that did not bleed (80%). Shallow-hooking rates decreased as fish length increased and were higher during warm water compared to cold water trials. The high shallow-hooking and survival rates observed suggest that A. butcheri survival in the fishery would be high, but deep-hooking has the potential to undermine the management strategy. Determining the shallow-hooking rate in the fishery would help clarify the impact of these findings at the fishery level.