A graduate traineeship is often a good route to becoming a fully qualified accountant. ACCA student Vukile Hlongwa explains how Shell South Africa has helped him fulfil his career ambitions
This article was first published in Septyember 2007 in Student Accountant.
‘I was born – and grew up – in a very small rural community near Margate, about 130km from Durban, South Africa. I first attended a rural school before moving on to a secondary school in a township. As career guidance is rarely given in these schools, people are often surprised to hear that my own career planning began when I was 15-years-old, and my career focus started when I was even younger.
‘My family ran a small business from our home. I often thought that they were not running it properly and so sometimes I would attempt to coach them – I was eight at the time! My career in accountancy has been inspired by lots of things, but especially the family business, which was started by my grandmother who then passed it on to my parents. My uncle also had shops where I used to work during weekends and after school.
‘I began to build my own career by studying for an accounting degree from the University of South Africa, which I gained through Varsity College, graduating in 2005. Just before completing my degree I got an opportunity to train in one of the biggest petrochemical organisations in the world, Shell Chemicals South Africa (Finance) based in Durban, and during this training period I completed two assets verification projects. It was at this time that I decided to look into becoming a member of the accountancy profession, and so I began to research various accountancy bodies. My experience of working in a global organisation made me realise that I had to choose an accountancy body which would give me global experience – and that was ACCA. I am also happy that ACCA is one of the accountancy bodies recognised by Shell’s internal and external employee development programmes.
‘With my business and accounting experience I was not surprised when, having completed the two projects, I was then given a Shell Group Records Management Project, which I had to implement locally, before joining a structured graduate development programme in Shell South Africa Energy as a crude stock accountant. I am now based in Cape Town and am responsible for making sure that crude vessel equalisations are performed, and for coordinating the loading partners as soon as each vessel discharge is complete. This means agreeing all crude-related accommodation balances; accounting for refinery production, including inter-product transfers and entitlements; checking all reconciliations of refinery product and crude borrow-loan balances; ensuring the correctness and integrity of the imports schedule; reconciling stock accounts; and ensuring that FIFO and crude costings are accurate.
‘There are many challenges in my current job, but the greatest is to develop my understanding of group reporting standards and the accounting techniques related to stock accounting – I believe the ACCA syllabus will help me greatly in this.
‘My message to all ACCA students is you should let your values and beliefs guide you in all that you do. You should also encourage and motivate yourself, rather than wait for other people to do this for you. In two-years’ time I see myself as a ACCA member, still working for Shell but moving more into corporate finance. I am also planning to enrol for the ACCA Oxford Brookes MBA after completing the ACCA Qualification. In 10-years’ time, I see myself as a financial controller in one of South Africa’s big organisations, or working abroad.’