Monrovia – The senior regional partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers West Africa market area says building the capacity of the company’s employees is an integral part of the entity.
Report by Bettie K. Johnson Mbayo, [email protected]
Mr. Uyi Akpata who has not returned to the country for more than two decades said if Liberians capacity is built, it will improve the growth and development of the country.
“When you strengthen capacity and create the right environment for business to strive personally, I mean if you (Government) create the best private sector for other development partners to come back to Liberia, that will be a quick way to improve the country and to be fair, the opportunity still exists in the global mining, rubber, oil and gas, palm oil, vegetables and poultry sectors.
“Our focus is to quickly build relationships and offer valuable solutions to our clients, based on both our understanding of the Liberian economy and the global trends so that our clients here can get ahead of the business curve as we expect our global clients to invest and expand new markets in Liberia,” Mr. Akpata said.
PricewaterhouseCoopers Liberia LLC (“PwC Liberia”) is a member of the international auditing firm PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited, multinational professional services firm.
It was opened October 13, 2016 has 32 Liberians in its employ of 45 staff..
He added that PWC is not all about audit but leadership which includes looking at concept papers, partnering with institutions and clients in developing people in different areas.
“We are here to build long term relationships with clients, people, and the communities in Liberia through our office so that they can support an environment that encourages more companies to grow and expand by providing industry insight and helping clients solve important problems,” he added.
He further disclosed that PWC business academy is expected to be established in Liberia like other countries.
“The market is very great but internally based on our projection, we are looking at our internal capacity – the next two years we are looking at tripling in size but is not about us but rather how can we support Liberia to reach its ultimate goal to support and increase the growth. So we aligned with people to reach the Sustainable Development Goal.”
For his part, the senior partner of PricewaterhouseCooper, Taweh Veikai, said PwC’s return to Liberia is a sign of significant progress made by the Liberian government in attracting Foreign Direct Investment in an emerging economy. He said Liberia has a huge potential for growth due to its abundant natural resources and emerging markets.
“We want to reiterate that the PWC was here before the war and since we got back is like bringing confidence in the accounting sector. We currently support anti-graft and Government in its work, and our corporate social responsibility is active and is part of the capacity building. We have a tutorial program at 5 Universities,” Veikai added.
He furthered that one of the major challenge is the training of newly graduates from Universities because they have no knowledge on the job.
“The problem is the capacity – finding the right people with the right mindset. So we looked at capacity as one of the major challenges because if you have people who are educated and have private entrepreneurial spirit, they make market for themselves instead of waiting for civil service to employ them,” the PwC Liberia senior partner mentioned.
“Let them be their own job creator and manage the skills they have. The prospect is that Liberia is a virgin country when it comes to social development, so the opportunities are endless – it depends on your creativity.”