cHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER’s
report
SEIFSA Breaks Even In February 2014, the then SEIFSA Board approved a three-year (2014-2017) strategy to turn the Federation around financially. The initial plan entailed extending SEIFSA’s suite of products and services beyond the narrow confines of the Federation’s members and of the metals and engineering sector. Over the past three years the plan was tweaked along the way, but the end goal remained the same: digging SEIFSA out of the deficit situation in which it had found itself since the 2011/12 financial year and ensuring that it broke even and got ready to start building reserves again. As one reported in this space last year, the terrible state of our economy – and, within it, that of the metals and engineering sector – in 2015/16 meant that tough decisions had to be taken to contain costs. Those steps included restructuring, which saw SEIFSA letting go of some employees and not filling some crucial vacancies. Those interventions saw the Federation coming very close to finishing 2015/16 on budget and left one emboldened to write in this space a year ago: “For the first time since 2011, SEIFSA is poised to break even in the 2016/17 financial year.” It is a great pleasure to be able to report in this Annual Review that, consistent with the 2014-2017 strategy and the forecast made last year, SEIFSA broke even – and generated some surplus – in 2016/17. This was the very first time since 2011 that the Federation had generated a surplus. This accomplishment was achieved despite the resignation, half way into the year, of the South African Engineers and Founders Association (SAEFA), which
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SEIFSA ANNUAL REVIEW 2017
Kaizer Nyatsumba Chief Executive Officer
was until then the single largest member Association. This move saw SEIFSA’s revenue negatively affected by a minimum of R1,2 million. Yet, notwithstanding that disappointing development which could not be foreseen at the beginning of the financial year, SEIFSA still achieved its break-even target. Our cost-containment measures during the year under review again made a big difference. Details of our financial performance in 2016/17 are provided in Chief Financial Officer Rajendra Rajcoomar’s Report in this publication. Perhaps more importantly, we were successful in our efforts to get as many of the companies that were members of the break-away SAEFA to switch their memberships to other SEIFSA-affiliated Associations. At the time of writing, more than 42% of the companies – employing more than 75% of the total number of employees – had resigned from SAEFA to join
