Chief Accountant - Africa

Purpose of the role:

• With the purpose of conducting a standardized, high quality and cost-efficient support function, GSS (Global Shared Services) Finance has re-organized its Middle Eastern and Africa operations into a center responsible for defined finance processes and transactional tasks in Pune, India. The Chief Accountant will be based in Cape Town, South Africa joining a team of 2 other Chief Accountants covering countries throughout Africa.
• The Chief Accountant oversees, reviews and evaluates the corporate compliance program on the local level, which includes internal control procedures and policies. The Chief Accountant ensures that management and employees comply with local rules and regulations and that corporate and company policies are being followed. 
• The Chief Accountant is accountable to GSS management, in all compliance matters as listed in the job purpose. Accountability is achieved through providing stewardship on compliance matters for BA (Business Area)/GSS management in the Region.

Key Accountabilities:

• Responsible for all statutory reporting and compliance for certain African legal entities such as Nigeria, Ghana and Morocco.
• Drive standardization of accounting processes and recording of transactions in collaboration with the GSS center.
• Drive standardization of the chart of accounts and cost center structure for the legal entities.
• Work with Business Controllers and GSS to standardize daily, weekly, monthly and annual reporting.
• Monitor share capital development and dividends and makes sure that equity rules and dividend payment rules are followed and are legally compliant (eg. thin capitalization rules, limits to dividends, WHT on dividends, dividend reporting).
• Ensure compliance with Group accounting standards, International Accounting Standards, Statutory and Tax rules.
• Oversee tax compliance, support in tax reviews, support in preparation of tax reports and tax calculation for annual group and statutory accounts.
• Oversee compliance to statutory rules, act as the main support in annual audits and preparation of annual statutory accounts and notes.
• Coordinate and facilitate in Internal Control matters.
• Prepare companies for Internal Control visits and participate in Group Internal Control visits.
• Main contact point for general accounting processes and group reporting, which includes providing input to specific accruals and provisions, Intercompany invoicing, investments and asset reviews, revenue recognition and questions on non-standard or complex journal entries.
• Take active steps to reconcile and pay all Intercompany balances in line with GSS Finance goals and KPI’s, taking into account local exchange control regulations. 
• Acts as main contact point towards auditors and outsourcing partners including tax advisors and local accounting service providers.
• Perform Cash management tasks for the legal entity including opening Group Treasury-approved bank accounts, closing previous bank accounts and ensuring bank reconciliations are up to date. Ensure there are joint bank signatories for each bank account.
• Support key strategic projects e.g. Finance system rollouts.