PAAB unveils sustainability roadmap to attract FDI, transform accounting profession

THE Public Accountants and Auditors Board (PAAB) has taken a major step towards reimagining the accountancy profession for sustainable growth, with the launch of a national sustainability reporting roadmap that will unlock foreign direct investment (FDI) and accelerate the country’s march towards Vision 2030.

This was revealed at the 10th edition of the Zimbabwe Accountants Conference (ZAC2026), held in Victoria Falls on Thursday.

The conference is being held under the theme: Reimagining the Accountancy Profession for Sustainable Growth, Trust, and Future Relevance.

In an interview with Zimpapers on the sidelines of the conference, Public Accountants and Auditors Board (PAAB) Director for Technical Standards, Mr Webster Sigauke, described the roadmap as a game changer for the profession.

“This is a major milestone as we move away from simply historical reporting and a focus which is only on the numbers, but also start embedding governance, environmental issues and social issues which businesses are associated with

“This is going to be more futuristic and will upscale our access to foreign markets, our access to capital, and bring in more foreign direct investment. Zimbabwe’s situation is to be placed appropriately to go along with these global developments and allow us to be participants as these changes are taking place,” said Mr Sigauke.

The roadmap aligns Zimbabwe’s corporate reporting framework with global sustainability standards, positioning local entities to compete for international capital that increasingly demands environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosures.

Mrs Sanguita Popatlal, Chief Director of Legal and Compliance Services in the Corporate Governance Unit in the Office of the President and Cabinet, said transparency and accountability are central to rebuilding investor trust.

“We are moving towards mere data presentation in financial statements. I have been asking for infographics where we see data in context, pie charts showing exactly the ratios of expenditure,” Mrs Popatlal said.

“Financial statements should not be mere presentation. They must include analysis of the data presented and storytelling on how we can tweak certain figures to make a bigger contribution to the transformation of our public entities and the public sector at large.”

She revealed that she is lobbying for the establishment of a sustainability unit within the President’s office to coordinate ESG reporting across ministries and ensure measurable community development impact.

PAAB Secretary, Mr Donald Mangenje, underscored the regulator’s role in ensuring that financial statements are credible and comparable internationally.

“Accountants are in every facet of our economy. Financial statements play an important role in communicating the standing of an institution. It is important that those statements are credible and can be relied on to make decisions by investors, shareholders and the public

“As a regulator, we prescribe, enforce and monitor. Anybody who wishes to invest in Zimbabwe will look at the financial statements first. Once we have transparency in our financial reporting, that impacts investment attraction,” Mr Mangenje said.

The sustainability roadmap launch marks a decisive shift for Zimbabwe’s accountancy profession from backward-looking number-crunching to forward-looking value creation with direct implications for the country’s quest to become an upper-middle-income society by 2030.