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15 August 2025 | Story Tshepo Tsotetsi
Business Acumen Day
The UFS School of Accountancy recently hosted its third annual Business Acumen Day and Panel Discussion, featuring former Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, Prof Deon Rossouw, Rochelle Murugan, and Prof Bernard Agulhas.

The University of the Free State’s (UFS) School of Accountancy in the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences hosted its third annual Business Acumen Day and Panel Discussion on 12 August 2025, placing ethics, integrity, and public trust firmly under the spotlight.

Sponsored by audit, accounting and consulting firm Forvis Mazars South Africa, the day opened with a student-centred engagement in the Callie Human Centre, followed by a dynamic panel discussion with staff and stakeholders at the Centenary Complex. Both sessions tackled the theme ‘Restoring Public Trust: Ethical Leadership in an Era of Public Accountability’.

The panel featured former Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, whose decades in judicial service include leading the State Capture Commission; Prof Deon Rossouw, an internationally recognised authority on business ethics and corporate governance; and Rochelle Murugan, Head of Audit at Forvis Mazars South Africa and a leader in diversity and inclusion. The discussion was facilitated by Prof Bernard Agulhas, former CEO of the Independent Regulatory Board for Auditors and an influential figure in global standard-setting and corporate governance.

According to Prof Frans Prinsloo, Director of the School of Accountancy, the event’s timing was deliberate: “Given the erosion of public confidence in leadership and the ongoing reports of corruption and abuse of power, it is crucial to address ethical leadership and public trust head-on. Our profession has a responsibility to lead conversations that promote integrity, accountability, and responsible leadership. These events give our profession and students the opportunity to hear directly from leaders who have shaped the national dialogue on these issues.”

 

Building a culture of ethics

Earlier in the day, Justice Zondo spoke directly to students who are preparing for careers in accounting and auditing, emphasising the importance of integrity in sustaining the profession’s credibility. “Your job is a very important job, and ethical behaviour is the only way your profession is going to continue to be respected. You must never let your profession down. Remember, your integrity is priceless,” he said. He also identified features of ethical leadership – integrity, fairness, humility, accountability, and courage – as non-negotiables for those entering the profession.

In the panel discussion, Murugan stressed that “the tone at the top plays a massive role” in shaping ethical cultures. She said leaders have a responsibility to create environments where ethical leadership and accountability are built into performance measures and reward systems. “Speaking up should be something we expect, respect, and protect,” she said, adding that embedding ethical policies into daily processes ensures they become a natural part of everyday work.

Prof Rossouw built on this point, noting that ethical tone must extend beyond the top levels of leadership. “We often find that the tone at the top does not filter down through the rest of the organisation. We need the same commitment to ethics across all employees,” he said, adding that an ethical culture requires clear standards, open discussions about ethics, and accountability. “If you do the wrong thing, there must be consequences. Equally, if you do the right thing, there should be recognition for the role you play,” he said, explaining that this approach allows employees at all levels to see themselves as active participants in an organisation’s ethical life.

 

Ethics in action: From Parliament to the public

Justice Zondo contributed a legal and governance perspective, drawing on an example from his time overseeing parliamentary processes. He recounted how, during a motion of no confidence in then-president Jacob Zuma, members of the ruling party were instructed to vote against the motion or risk losing their parliamentary seats. “This illustrates how individuals sometimes compromise their ethics out of fear for their positions,” he said. “In the public sector, the system can work against ethics when decisions are taken in the interest of the organisation rather than the people it serves. This undermines the fight against corruption.”

He also outlined three ways citizens can play a role in strengthening public accountability: avoiding the election of leaders with histories of wrongdoing; remaining active and vocal in holding public representatives accountable; and supporting or joining organisations that fight corruption. “Remember, people in Parliament work for you, not the other way around,” he told the audience.

Prof Rossouw offered a conceptual distinction between ethics and values, clarifying that, although the two are related, they are not identical. “Ethics is about doing good unto others as you expect them to do unto you. Values, on the other hand, are our priorities or convictions about what is important – but not all values are ethical. Ethical values are those that guide how we treat other people and interact with them,” he explained, describing ethics as a subset of an organisation’s broader values.

Underscoring why this conversation matters for the profession and the country, Prof Prinsloo noted: “Accounting and auditing are cornerstones of public accountability. Ethical leadership ensures these functions are performed with integrity and transparency. In South Africa, where there have been significant breaches of trust, the intersection of these three elements is vital. Ethical accounting and auditing practices, guided by strong ethical leadership, are essential for ensuring that public resources are managed responsibly and that those in positions of power are held accountable. In the School of Accountancy, we aim to equip our students with the skills and ethical grounding to navigate these complexities and uphold the highest standards of public accountability.”

Hosting thought leaders such as Justice Zondo and Prof Rossouw, he added, is both “a privilege” and a signal of intent: “By providing a platform for these important conversations, we signal to our students, alumni, and the broader community that we are serious about shaping ethical leaders and promoting a culture of accountability.”

The third annual Business Acumen Day and Panel Discussion continues the School of Accountancy’s commitment to convening rigorous, topical dialogue across auditing, governance, sustainability, and ethics – a commitment Prof Prinsloo says will endure: “We will continue to host conversations that challenge conventional thinking, bring together diverse voices, and provide students and practitioners with tools to strengthen ethical cultures in their organisations.”

News Archive

Open letter from Prof Jonathan Jansen to all UFS students
2014-02-22

Dear Students of the University of the Free State

In the past four years there has emerged a new consensus on the three campuses of the University of the Free State (UFS) about the things that divide us – such as racism, sexism and homophobia. Students and campus leaders have worked hard to develop this new consensus in residences and in the open spaces on campus. There can be no doubt that new bonds of friendship have developed across the markers of race, ethnicity, class, religion and sexual orientation. I bear witness to these new solidarities every day on the campus.

You chose a white student to head up the transformation portfolio on the SRC. You chose a black captain to head up the university’s first team in rugby. You chose a white “prime” as head of residence to lead a predominantly black men’s residence. You chose a South African woman of Indian descent as Rag Queen and last week, a black student from Cape Town as the men’s Rag winner—choices not possible and never made before in our campus history. Many of you have intimate friends who come from different social or cultural or religious backgrounds. You learn together, share rooms together, pray together and party together. In other words, in the day to day workings of this university campus, you have demonstrated to campus, city and country that we can overcome the lingering effects of racism and other maladies in this new generation. You have helped create a university community inclusive of people of diverse religions, abilities, class and sexual orientation.

I have said this repeatedly that from time to time this new consensus will be tested – when a minority of students, and they are a small and dwindling minority, still act as if these are the days of apartheid. And when that consensus is tested as it was this week, and as it will be tested in the future, only then we will be able to assess the strength and durability of our progress in creating a new South African campus culture of human togetherness based on respect, dignity and embrace.

The real test of our leadership, including student leadership, is how we respond when our transformation drive is threatened.

Let me say this: I have absolute faith in you, as students of this great university, to stand together in your condemnation of these vile acts of violence and to move together in your determination to maintain the momentum for the Human Project of the University of the Free State. We have come too far to allow a few criminals to derail what you have built together in recent years.

There will, no doubt, be unscrupulous people on all sides of the political spectrum wanting to milk this tragedy for their own narrow purposes. There will be false information, rumours and exaggerations by those who wish to inflame a bad situation to gain mileage for their agendas. That is inevitable in a country that is still so divided.

I ask you, through all of this, to keep perspective. Two or ten or even twenty students behaving badly do not represent 30,000 students; a minority of violent and hateful persons do not represent the ideals, ambitions and commitments of the majority. At the same time, let us be realistic – anyone who thinks you can drive transformation without resistance clearly does not understand the difficult process of change.

The events of the week remind us, however, that we still have a long road to walk in deepening social and academic transformation at our university. Yes, we have invested hundreds of hours in training and mentorship; we have created new structures – such as the Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice – to capture the energy and imagination of students driving transformation; we have created many opportunities for students to study and travel on this and other continents to enable cross-cultural learning; we have established formal and informal opportunities to dialogue about difficult issues on and off campus between students and their leaders; and we crafted new curricula to enable teaching and learning on the big questions of our times.

But this is clearly not enough, and so I have decided on the following immediate next steps:
  1. We will meet for several hours next week to think about how we can deepen the transformation of our university after this terrible incident.

  2. We will arrange a University Assembly on the events of the past week so that we speak with one voice on human wrongs and to re-commit to human rights and we will continue with open forum discussions during the months to come.

  3. We will review the entire spectrum of programmes, from orientation to residence life to the undergraduate curriculum, to determine how effective our interventions really are in reaching all students with respect to basic issues of human rights.

  4. We will review our media and communications strategy to determine how far and deep our messages on human rights travel across all sectors of the university community. In this regard it is important that the campus be blanketed on a regular basis with our condemnation of human wrongs and our commitment to human rights.

  5. We will commission the Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice to review the events of the past week and make recommendations on how we can improve the campus environment so that all students are protected from harm inside residences, classrooms and in open spaces of the campus.

  6. We will take the questions raised during this week into the academic community and to the general staff of the university so that all personnel also engage with our own roles and responsibilities with respect to campus transformations.

  7. We undertake to make annual report-backs on transformation to all stakeholders in public forums so that students and staff and external communities can track the progress of the university on matters of human rights on campus.

I wish to thank my staff for acting firmly as soon as this tragic event came to our attention. We worked through the night to find and identify the perpetrators. We traced the two students and immediately handed them to the police. They were expelled. And throughout this process we offered counselling and support to the victim of this violent act.

The two former students were expelled and will now face justice in the criminal courts. It is hoped that in the course of time they will come to their senses and seek restoration and reconciliation with the student they so callously harmed. They are not part of the university community anymore.

That is the kind of university we are.

Jonathan D Jansen
Vice-Chancellor and Rector
University of the Free State
20 February 2014

 
Note: The use of the word ‘campus’ refers to all three campuses of the UFS, namely the Bloemfontein Campus, South Campus and Qwaqwa Campus.

 

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