Business rescue practitioners (BRP) obligations

The Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) has, on 28 June 2017, accredited the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA) as a professional body for business rescue practitioners in terms of Section 138(1) of the Companies Act, 2008.

As part of the accreditation process SAICA is responsible for the:

• Monitoring of the Continuing Professional Development (CPD) of their relevant members;
• Providing opportunities for BRP's to obtain the relevant CPD;
• Reporting CPD compliance and non-compliance to the CIPC.

SAICA registered business rescue practitioners are responsible for:

• Identifying and completion of the relevant CPD
• Keeping records

The CPD requirements expected from business rescue practitioners are:

• Minimum of 20 hours of relevant professional development activity during every calendar year, of which –
  • a minimum of 12 (of the above 20 hours) hours must be verifiable; and 4 hours must be directly related to business rescue
  • a minimum of 8 hours of learning (verifiable /non- verifiable) must be completed during each of the years.

• From the 12 verifiable hours, 4 hours must be directly related to business rescue and the other 8 hours can be CPD that is related to the concept / process of business rescue, such as accounting, taxation, management accounting, human resources, management and related labour and other legislation.

• The CIPC CPD policy requires that the accredited body request its members to record their CPD and furnish details to the accredited body if required.

The CPD requirements for business rescue practitioners apply from the date of registration (apportionment of CPD hours applies if registered during the course of the year). A calendar year commences on 1 January and end on 31 December, therefore 20 hours is calculated in pro rata basis for newly registered business rescue practitioners depending on registration date.

Members and Associates registered as business rescue practitioners with SAICA must declare their compliance with the 20 hours business rescue CPD by submitting an business rescue practitioner declaration annually on the SAICA Member Portal. SAICA on a sample basis, verify member’s compliance to the CPD requirements via annual monitoring.

Verifiable CPD documents

The concept of verifiability is that the learning activity can be objectively verified (i.e. by someone with no direct or vested interest in the learning activity) by a competent source (i.e. someone who can provide a true and fair representation that the learning activity has taken place).

Evidence of verifiable includes certificates of courses attended, attendance registers verified by third parties, letters or emails from third parties confirming the CPD learning activity and participation in such activity.

Detailed business rescue CPD records must be maintained by individual members in their own personal records – for example, in Excel, PDF or Word format. When selected for monitoring, business rescue practitioner will be required to log into the SAICA Member Portal and upload a list of CPD activities as well as related evidence. The requirement to comply with the business rescue CPD requirements applies from the date of registration as a BRP. Business rescue practitioners must retain their CPD records for a period of 5 years.

A list of CPD activities captured in the form of an Excel spreadsheet, a Word or a PDF document must be included as part of the CPD evidence.

All information gathered as part of the monitoring will be dealt with confidentially.

CPD activities hosted by SAICA

SAICA considers verifiable evidence for business rescue practitioners to be the following:

• Business rescue practitioner who book and attend live SAICA webcasts or face-to-face events will receive a confirmation of attendance email confirming attendance at the stated webcast/ event and the duration of the webcast / event.
• If unable to attend the live event, then practitioners are able to watch the recording on the SAICA eVolve platform – in this case they must complete the assessment and submit this as evidence. Where a practitioner is watching a recording of a past event and not a live event or they have read a SAICA CPD article, no certificate of attendance will be issued, and they will have to obtain the completion certificate to serve as verifiable CPD. To obtain a completion certificate, they need to successfully complete the relevant assessment and obtain a pass mark of 75% on the SAICA eVolve platform, after having watched the entire recording of the relevant session. Practitioners can then download the completion certificate on the SAICA eVolve system.
• The learning and assessments must have taken place in the period under review (1 January – 31 December annually) – the reports must therefore reflect that this was completed during the relevant period. Practitioners must review their dashboard to confirm that all quizzes were completed by 31 December.
• Confirmation of attendance or completion certificate at a SAICA event can be obtained from the Seminars and Events team (S&E) by logging a call through the Member portal

Take note of the following events that can assist Business rescue practitioners with attaining verifiable CPD hours:

Past and upcoming events

• Below is the eVolve link to the Business Rescue Webinar / Seminar:
• https://evolve.saica.co.za/course/index.php?categoryid=57
• Below is the eVolve link to the Ethics in Practice series presented since February 2024:
• https://evolve.saica.co.za/course/index.php?categoryid=142
• Thursday, 14 November 2024 - SAICA Business Rescue Interest Group meeting (BRP meeting)

For more information on CPD, please click here...