“We work hard, play hard and support
each other’s dreams.”
MEET THE TEAM
The PUMISA team are highly qualified experts in public finance management (PFM), budgeting, costing, accounting and audit. We have expertise in social sector costing (policies and programmes), budget analysis, expenditure reviews, expenditure tracking, financial modelling and budget system implementation.
Public Finance
Management (PFM) & Public Finance for Children (PF4C) Expert
Registered Government
Auditor (RGA) & Public Finance Management (PFM) expert
Public Finance Management (PFM) & Governance Expert
Public Finance
Management (PFM) &
Revenue Management Expert
Supply Chain Management (SCM) Expert
Expert in integrating public Finance Management (PFM) and Public Sector Performance Management
Copy-Editing and Graphic
Design Services
THE TEAM has considerable accredited and non-accredited training and facilitation experience in the public sector. The team boasts post-graduate degrees in Economics, Public Administration, Business Administration, Accounting, Auditing, Organisational Leadership, International Studies and Graphic Design.
THE PROFESSIONALS possess decades of programme and project management experience, allowing them to take individual leadership and implement the full cycle of their projects, including scoping, resourcing, costing, budgeting, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, and invoicing.
ALL ASSOCIATES are fully proficient in most MS Office applications. The team's skill set includes user skills of Enterprise Resource Planning software, namely SAP MariProjekt project management software (a module of SAP Business One), basic statistical applications, Lotus Notes and Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, InDesign, etc.). Team members are acquainted with IPSAS and PRINCE2 project management principles. Associates are fully fluent in English. Other languages spoken include Kiswahili (Kennedy), French beginner (Juan and Kennedy), Luganda (Bernadette) and Afrikaans (Juan, John, Kikukop).
Juan Bester (Masters in Business Administration - MBA, MA in International Studies, Hons.BA in Economics) is the principal of PUMISA. He is a public sector management expert with more than 18 years of consulting and training experience with governments and parastatal clients in Africa, Middle East, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific. He has experience in working with one of the world’s largest donors – the UN. His international clients included UNDP (Afghanistan, Botswana, Myanmar, South Africa, Swaziland) and UNICEF (The Gambia, Indonesia, Kiribati, Middle East and North Africa Regional Office, South Africa, Tanzania, Viet Nam, West and Central Africa Regional Office).
Before starting his international career, Juan led a team of economists and public sector specialists on consulting and training projects within his home country – South Africa – at the Applied Fiscal Research Centre – AFReC (Pty) Ltd, affiliated to the University of Cape Town. His PFM work experience included consulting to and training South African government public managers on accountability measures, MTEF formulation, costing of programmes and plans, M&E of expenditure and service delivery and legislative oversight. His South African clients included national, provincial and local government authorities, both on the administrative and legislative side.
Juan Bester – PUMISA Principal, PFM & PF4C Expert
Public sector management expert with more than 18 years of consulting and training experience.
James Botha – PUMISA Associate, Registered Government Auditor (RGA) & PFM expert
James Botha (Registered Government Auditor (RGA), Hons. B.Compt in Accounting & Auditing, B.Comm in Accounting & Auditing) is an experienced PFM expert with more than 27 years of experience in supporting all levels of government. Previous responsibilities include being the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and Audit Executive in national and sub-national (provincial) departments of education, South Africa, from 2008 to 2014. His extensive portfolio includes leading education sector audits (internal and external) at national, sub-national and local government levels and conducting Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA) assessments at sub-national (provincial) education departments in South Africa.
He rendered advisory services to reform, promote and enhance public sector governance in education departments, including leading and supporting oversight functions, such as Audit Committee and Public Accounts Committees (PACs). His hands-on education sector expertise includes (i) project managing the audit of schools, (ii) formulating audit plans, procedures and reporting structures, and (iii) ensuring data integrity within the School Administration System. He has in-depth experience with South Africa’s Education Management Information System (EMIS).
He has recently been accredited to conduct INTOSAI-IDI assessments on Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) based on the Performance Management Framework (“SAI-PMF”) and has been accredited to conduct training in this regard).
Bernadette Kizito – PUMISA Associate, PFM & Governance Expert
Public Financial Management (PFM) & Governance expert with over 17 years experience.
Bernadette Nakabuye Kizito (FCCA, CPA(U), MPPM, MSc in Public Policy and Management, B.Comm in Accounting) is a qualified accountant and Public Financial Management (PFM) & Governance expert with over 17 years experience in supporting PFM reforms at senior government level, primarily in Uganda. She has expertise in strategy formulation, institutional strengthening, policy change management, governance and risk management.
Bernadette is an accomplished project manager - her past projects include the implementation of integrated financial management systems and related capacity development amongst key accountability institutions. Bernadette has considerable experience in applying the PEFA Framework in assessments and PFM reforms. She is a certified trainer with vast experience in assessment and design of appropriate institutional capacity building strategies, policies and programmes for staff at national and sub-national levels.
Kennedy Mganga Chilibasi (PhD Candidate, Master in Business Administration – MBA, MA in Tax and Customs Administration, Bachelors of Commerce in Accounting) is a public finance management (PFM) expert with more than 12 years in the public sector. His substantial PFM portfolio includes leading financial management processes in public primary schools and the Free Primary Education (FPE) Fund in Kenya. He has also led Public Expenditure Tracking Survey (PETS) for the FPE Fund.
Kennedy is a Certified Public Accountant registered by the Institute of the Certified Public Accountants of Kenya and has participated in numerous public sector audits, including social auditing as a tool for accountability in the public sector. He has led audits on PFM systems for the sub-national governments relating to procurement and public expenditure as well as value for money audits on provision of pro-poor services. He led research and advisory services on taxation that covered redesign of revenue management in both national and sub-national governments.
He has been trained on the PEFA 2016 framework by the World Bank as well as the TADAT framework by the IMF. Kennedy’s other PFM projects includ technical leadership on: corporate governance, strategic planning, monitoring and evaluation (M&E). Kennedy’s most recent role was the Chief Officer for Economic Planning in the office of the Permanent Secretary (PS) for Economic planning, in the County Government of Kilifi, Kenya.
Kennedy Chilibasi, PUMISA Associate, PFM & Revenue Management Expert
Lawson Naidoo (PhD in Business Management, MA in Organisational Leadership (Cum Laude with distinction), Bachelors in Logistics) is a public sector supply chain management (SCM) expert with more than 28 years of work experience in South Africa. He skills set includes knowledge of SCM rules of major international donors (EU PRAG, USAID, Belgium (including Flanders), CIDA, and SIDA). He has practical experience in acquisition management, logistics management, distribution of goods and warehouse management.
Lawson has in-depth knowledge of the Education, Training and Development Practitioners’ (ETDP) environment, South Africa’s National Qualifications Frameworks and outcomes-based course development. He is an experienced SCM trainer and has covered the development of operational manuals. Lawson teaches SCM at the Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) in Pretoria, South Africa. Before that he was Senior Procurement Advisor: Municipal Finance Improvement Program (MFIP), at the National Treasury of South Africa.
Lawson Naidoo, PUMISA Associate, Supply Chain Management (SCM) Expert
Public sector supply chain management (SCM) expert, PhD, with more than 28 years of work experience.
John Stuart, PUMISA Associate, Expert in integrating PFM and Public Sector Performance Management
Expertise in integrating PFM and Public Sector Performance Management (20 years)
John Stuart (M.Comm.) is an economist by training (University of Natal) and profession (University of Cape Town, AFReC), and has built up expertise in public finance management, especially financial system implementation and quantitative modelling (20 years).
As Executive Director of Performance Budgeting System – PBS (Pty) Ltd, he oversaw the development and implementation of the PBS Management Information System (MIS) for National and Provincial Government entities in South Africa. His expertise and business development acumen is critical for any endeavour that seeks to integrate performance information measures with government systems.
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John’s keen understanding of the relationship between the input side of government – the budget and expenditure – to the output side – the activities and their outputs, was the reason he was appointed to be the chief system designer of the Performance Budgeting System (PBS). As part of this role, he developed a fully consistent model for zero-based budgeting for South African government departments and designed various workflows for costing the outputs of government activities. This work was done not only with education departments but also health, housing, social development, transport and other departments.
John also has extensive training and facilitation experience, not satisfied with developing solutions that are inaccessible to users, John strives to develop and present training solutions that are inclusive and practically-relevant. This relates not just to face to face training but also the development of training materials and technical manuals. In recent years John has done work for United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
KikuKop is a South Africa-based start-up venture with more than 16 years of expertise in copy-editing, consumer-focused publication layout and graphic design services. KikuKop is skilled in photo shoots, project/brand management, multimedia, marketing, and print design.
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KikuKop's expertise includes:
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Visual storytelling
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Project management
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Problem solving
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Quality control
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Team work
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Client relations
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Art Budget administration
Kikukop is instrumental in ensuring that PUMISA’s technical documents exhibit quality, and are visually aesthetic and user-friendly, considering an anticipated broad public consumption of PUMISA’s products, especially by government officials.
Kikukop, PUMISA Associate, Copy-Editing and Graphic Design Services
Expertise in copy-editing, consumer-focused publication layout and graphic design services.
