With 71 papers presented at the recent Southern Africa Accounting Association conference in East London, it was gratifying to see that Professor Carlos Correia of the College of Accounting commanded the top spot by winning the Best Paper Award.

UCT had the leading number of papers presented at the conference with 11 submissions, of which ten emanated from the College of Accounting.

The title of the winning paper was  “A refined constructive operating lease capitalisation model considering new proposed lease accounting rules” and it was co-authored by Johnathan Dillon of NMMU and Prof Carlos Correia, who occupies the KW Johnston Chair of Accounting at UCT.

                   Carlos Correia and Johnathan Dillon

According to the abstract, the study develops a refined model used to capitalise off-balance sheet operating leases. “Based predominantly on the constructive operating lease capitalisation method developed by Imhoff, Lipe and Wright (1991 & 1997), the refined model considers the impact of the new proposed accounting treatment for leases (in terms of ED/2013/6 – the revised lease accounting exposure draft released by the IASB and FASB in May 2013). It also incorporates aspects of current lease accounting rules not previously considered, namely provisions recognised in respect of the straight-lining of operating leases as well as onerous operating lease contracts,” according to the abstract

UCT authors at the conference included Prof Ilse Lubbe,  Shaun Parsons, Riley Carpenter, Gizelle Willows, Jolandi Gevers, Taryn Miller, Paul Maughan and  Nestene Botha, as well as Dr Phillip de Jager from FTX

The theme of the conference was “Our role as accountancy educators:  Closing the GAP” and the following three plenary discussions followed this theme, with discussions relating to:

• Closing the GAP for students between school and university,
• The Global Accountancy Skills Crises and the GAP between university and the world of work, and
• The GAP between Academic Performance and Academic Evaluation Criteria (research vs onerous teaching commitments).

UCT is now very well represented on the SAAA Executive Committee, with the following colleagues appointed at the AGM:

• Jolandi Gevers – subject representative for Management Accounting and Finance
• Riley Carpenter – subject representative for Taxation
• Ilse Lubbe – re-elected as subject representative for Accounting Education

At the Western Cape Regional meeting Shelly Herbert has been elected as the Vice-chairperson for the Western Cape Region, and it was also confirmed that UCT will be hosting the next Regional Conference in 2016.

“Heads up for scholarship in the College!” said Prof Lubbe.