ACCOUNTING PROFESSION CELEBRATES SABMILLER ZAMBIA AUDIT TEAM

Zambia is the first country in Africa to win the Internal Auditor’s Award

The SABMiller Zambia internal auditing team with Ministry of Labour Acting Permanent Secretary Cecilia Kamanga, centre, and SABMiller Chief Internal Auditor Steve Humphreys.

LUSAKA, ZAMBIA – The accounting professional today (July 13) celebrated the SABMiller Zambia internal audit team’s achievement of becoming the first African subsidiary in the group to be awarded its Global Internal Audit Team of the Year Award.

The team comprising Kabila Ilunga, Andrew Mulenga, Rose Chisha Musonda and Edwin Kabengele emerged the top performers out of 80 SABMiller operations around the world after showing excellent performance in the Key Performance Indicators (KPI) for the year ended March, 2015.

“SABMiller Plc, which is the second largest brewer in the world by sales volume, decided to award the Zambian Team of Internal Auditors as the Global Best performing team for the financial year…this is the very first time that an African team has won such an award and going ahead of the best performing teams in Europe, America, Australia and Asia,” said the Minister of Labour and Social Security, Hon. Fackson Shamenda in a speech read for him by acting permanent secretary Cecilia Kamanga at the award ceremony held at Radisson Blu Hotel in Lusaka.

“As Government, we commend the efforts of SABMiller Plc in appreciating and recognising the talent that resides in Zambia. We also applaud the efforts of the Zambian Business and the employees in the Internal Audit function for the job well done and please keep it up!” said Mr Shamenda.

SABMiller Zambia finance director, Herman Lubbe said the auditing team winning the award “will motivate all the employees to reach higher heights.  On behalf of our Board of Directors, Executive Committee members and members of staff, I would like to say congratulations to the team for a job well done.”

The team is well versed in the areas of internal auditing and have both the experience and qualifications, with 3 members of the team members being accredited to the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), which is the global body for professional accountants, and 2 members fully qualified.

The awards are conducted on an annual basis and assess compliance with defined quality and performance measures and the effectiveness of auditing teams in each country and at regional and global levels using a standardised group-wide internal audit methodology in compliance with the International Standards for the Professional Practice of Internal Auditing of the Institute of Internal Auditors.