Zuko April

Background

About Zuko April

Dr Zuko April is in possession of a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) from the University of the Western Cape, Master of Commerce (MCOM) from University of Johannesburg, BCom Honors in Business and Financial Management from Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) and a BCom degree from the then University of Port Elizabeth (UPE).His career started off over 15 years ago when he served external audit articles with SAB & T in Pretoria. During his time with the company, he was mainly involved in the audit of government departments using the Team-Mate audit software in various provinces, in addition to the compilation of Annual Financial Statements on the Case Ware software. He was also exposed to corporate governance, VAT and Tax returns. He later joined Statistics South Africa in their Financial Statistics unit, in the electricity sector, where he was involved in the data collection, capturing, cleaning and the compilation of financial statistics. He joined the Department of Trade and Industry in September 2009, where he is currently employed. He moved up through levels, from the Trade and Industry Advisor, Assistant Director to his current position of the Deputy Director, which he has held since March 2013. The roles involved the implementation of the different economic policies through incentives grants that are intended for private sector companies. The department’s incentive programmes are offered to qualifying enterprises for various economic activities; including manufacturing, business competitiveness, innovation, economic infrastructure, export development & market access as well as foreign direct investment. At the core of these incentives is entrepreneurship. He has therefore, been exposed to the implementation of different economic policies of government from ASGISA, JIPSA, IPAP and currently Sectoral Master Plans and the National Development Plan. He is also a member of the Black Industrialist Scheme Technical Committee.Dr April has wealth of experience in Project Management, Government Grants Funding and Investment Support, Strategic Management, Corporate Governance, Research and Innovation, Market Analysis, Stakeholder Management, Team Facilitation and Management, Resource Management and Optimization, Budgeting, Corporate Reporting, Risk Management, Public Finance Management Act (PFMA), Treasury Regulations, Labour to mention but a few. He is currently heading the Technology and Human Resource for Industry Programme (THRIP) with a budget of more than R200 million annually, where he is reporting directly to a Chief Director.