Keynotes & Speakers
18 – 20 September 2024
Stellenbosch, South Africa
Mr Saliem
Fakir
(African Climate Foundation)
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Prof Stephanus
van Zyl
(University of Pretoria)
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Mr Keith
Engel
(South African Institute of Taxation)
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Mr Ian
Parry
(International Monetary Fund)
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Dr Nthabiseng
Moleko
(Stellenbosch Business School)
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Dr Muhammad
Ashfaq Ahmad
(UN Committee on Environmental Taxation)
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Ms Shameela
Soobramoney
(National Business Initiative)
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Ms Susanne
Aakerfeldt
(World Bank)
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Ms Karen
Bosman
(Wesgro)
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Mr Christopher
Morgan
(KPMG UK)
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Mr Abel
Sakhau
(Sanlam)
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Keynote Speaker
Mr Saliem
Fakir
(African Climate Foundation)
Saliem Fakir is an expert in the fields of climate and energy, finance and economics. He is the Founder and Executive Director of the African Climate Foundation, the first strategic grant-making foundation on the African continent with a focus on delivering impact through support to interventions at the climate-development nexus. He currently also holds the position of honorary lecturer at the Mandela School of Governance (UCT). Saliem serves on the Board of GreenCape and the Atlantic Special Economic Zone.
Prior to establishing the African Climate Foundation, Saliem served as the Head of the Policy & Futures Unit of WWF South Africa for 11 years. He worked at Lereko Energy Investments. He served as a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Public Administration and Planning and an Associate Director for the Centre for Renewable and Sustainable Energy at Stellenbosch University. Prior to that he served as Director of the World Conservation Union, South Africa (IUCN-SA) for eight years. He has served on several other Boards and is a prolific writer who contributes regularly to leading South African publications like Engineering News, Business Day and the Daily Maverick.
PLENARY I: Carbon pricing developments across the globe (Wednesday 18 September)
Moderator
Prof Stephanus
van Zyl
(University of Pretoria)
Stephanus van Zyl is a professor in Tax Law in the department of Mercantile Law at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. He is a research fellow at the African Tax Institute at the University of Pretoria and a visiting professor at Gujarat National Law University, India. He lectures on income tax law and value added tax law. He is a well-respected researcher of tax law. He has published widely, locally, and internationally, on e-commerce, value added tax, tax administration, environmental taxes, and income tax. He was instrumental to the e-commerce amendments to the VAT legislation in South Africa, Nigeria, and Ghana. He has advised the Davis tax commission on the impact of e-commerce on the collection of value added tax. He serves on the Indirect Tax Technical Committee of the African Tax Administration Forum. He serves on the African Tax Research Network advisory board as the chair of research and ethics. He advises the South African National Treasury, the Mauritius Revenue Authority, and the Federal Inland Revenue Service (Nigeria) regularly. He is a Master Tax Practitioner and an academic member of the South African Institute for Tax Practitioners.
Prof Keith
Engel
(South African Institute of Taxation)
Keith Engel is the CEO of the South African Institute of Taxation (SAIT), a prominent professional body for tax practitioners. As part of his core duties managing the Institute, he is actively engaged in tax at a policy, legislative and interpretative level (e.g., with National Treasury, Parliament, SARS, the Davis Tax Committee, and the private sector). His role also includes presentations and participation in a wide range of South African tax and regional African tax issues for technical audiences and is repeatedly engaging with the media. Outside of the Institute, he regularly teaches at the Wits University as an adjunct professor and provides lectures at other universities. Keith is well known for his leading roles in the formulation of tax legislation at the National Treasury from 2000 to 2013.
Ms Kasia
Lewis
(EY, USA)
Kasia Lewis is a Partner at EY based in San Francisco. Kasia leads EY’s Center for Climate Policy – a specialized global knowledge hub supporting governments and international institutions in designing, developing and implementing climate policy solutions and carbon markets regulations across both voluntary and compliance regimes. The Center also works with private sector clients to identify how climate policy trends impact their business. A particular focus of Kasia is the legal definition of carbon credits and the emerging framework of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. Kasia graduated from Harvard Law School where she was a recipient of Gammon Fellowship for Academic Excellence. She is a member of the New York Bar. She is frequently recognized by international rankings of lawyers as a leading advisor on emission trading schemes.
Mr Ian
Parry
(International Monetary Fund)
Ian Parry is the Principal Environmental Fiscal Policy Expert in the IMF’s Fiscal Affairs Department. Previously he held the Allen Kneese Chair in Environmental Economics at Resources for the Future. He has a PhD in economics from the University of Chicago in 1993. Parry’s research focuses on country-level analysis of carbon pricing and other policies to implement mitigation strategies and their broader fiscal and economic impacts. Parry also quantifies the broader environmental (e.g., local air pollution) costs of fossil fuel use at the country level and efficient levels of fuel prices needed to reflect supply and environmental costs.
Mr Hadi
Setiawan
(Ministry of Finance, Indonesia)
Hadi Setiawan is a Senior Policy Analyst at the Fiscal Policy Agency, Ministry of Finance, Republic of Indonesia. He started his career as a civil servant in 2000 at the Directorate General of Taxes, Ministry of Finance, Republic of Indonesia. Then continued his career as a researcher at the Fiscal Policy Agency-Ministry of Finance from 2011 until 2023. Currently, he is a member of the Ministry of Finance’s energy team, chief of the carbon tax team at the Fiscal Policy Agency, and deputy chief for tax expenditure report team, etc. He completed his bachelor degree from the Polytechnic of State Finance STAN in 2005. He obtained his Master of Accounting degree from the University of Gadjah Mada in 2010.
PLENARY II: Public-private partnerships in the Just Energy Transition (Thursday 19 September)
Moderator
Dr Nthabiseng
Moleko
(Stellenbosch Business School)
Nthabiseng Moleko is a development economist and a senior lecturer in Managerial Economics and Statistics at Stellenbosch Business School. She is the CEO and Founder of Ngezandla Advisory, an interdisciplinary research and advisory firm that specialises in providing unique solutions to business, governments, and the philanthropic sector to navigate the complexities of today’s challenging terrain. She has worked in the macroeconomic, development finance, public finance, economic development, and econometrics fields for 18 years. In 2018 she was appointed to the Board of Trustees for the National Empowerment Fund, where she Chaired the Board’s Investment Committee. In 2021 she was appointed as the Chairperson of the National Empowerment Fund and has recently been appointed to the Presidential B-BBEE Advisory Council. She also serves in the strategic advisory committee of the Development Bank of Southern Africa’s Infrastructure Fund.
Moderator
Prof Lee-Ann
Steenkamp
(Stellenbosch Business School)
Lee-Ann Steenkamp is an Associate Professor in tax and accounting at Stellenbosch Business School, where she teaches on the MBA and other postgraduate programs. She is a member of the management committee for the School’s Centre for Corporate Governance in Africa. Lee-Ann is a National Research Foundation (NRF) rated researcher – a rare accolade which is bestowed on academics with exceptional research output. She obtained her PhD in Public Law from the University of Cape Town, wherein she examined the transition from the old Kyoto Protocol to the new Paris Agreement on Climate Change. She advises on carbon tax policy matters and Chairs the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA) Carbon Tax subcommittee which provides input to National Treasury. In addition, she is a member of the steering committee for the biennial International Conference on Clean Electrical Power held in Italy.
Dr Muhammad
Ashfaq Ahmad
(UN Committee on Environmental Taxation)
Mr Abel
Sakhau
(Sanlam)
Abel Sakhau is the Chief Sustainability Officer of Sanlam, the largest non-banking financial services group on the African continent, with a leading niche presence in Asia. He is a Sustainability and Climate Change strategist with 16 years of experience in the mining industry and a combined 22 years of work experience. He is a qualified environmental scientist from the University of Witwatersrand and holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Leadership and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Stellenbosch University. His expertise is in sustainability strategy development, managing professional and specialised business units in climate change, environmental management, and sustainability. Abel has been in various leadership and management positions within and outside his current organisation. He currently serves on the board of the National Business Initiative (NBI) and has previously served as the Chair of the Regulating Committee for Meteorological Services and is a past president of the National Association for Clean Air, South Africa.
Ms Shameela
Soobramoney
(National Business Initiative)
Shameela Soobramoney is the CEO of the South African National Business Initiative (NBI), an independent coalition of local and multinational businesses focusing on taking action to achieve social and environmental sustainability, underpinned by good governance. Shameela, formerly the Chief Sustainability Officer at the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), led the JSE’s Sustainability and Climate Change Disclosure Guidance initiative, which won the 2022 award for Thought Leadership in Sustainable Investing: Africa from Environmental Finance. Her notable contributions include advancing the JSE’s exploration of climate change, carbon credit trading, and sustainable finance frameworks. She has served as chair of the World Federation of Exchange’s (global) Sustainability Working Group, a member of the Strategy Group of the Global Investors for Sustainable Development Alliance (GISD), and chair of the Sustainable Finance Working Group of the National Treasury of South Africa. Shameela holds a Master’s in Sustainability Leadership from the University of Cambridge and an MBA from the University of Pretoria’s Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS). She is an alum of the Chevening and Mansion House scholarships.
Ms Alenka
Turnsek
(EY, UK)
Alenka Turnsek is a Tax Partner based in London and serves as the Global Sustainability Tax Policy Leader, specializing in sustainability regulations, taxes, and incentives. In her role, Alenka supports companies by translating fast-emerging sustainability legislation into potential areas of impact across value chains in different industries. She also assists governments in shaping and improving sustainability legislation regarding taxes and supply chain impacts. Most recently, she has been supporting the sustainability transition in the Middle East. Alenka has extensive experience in global supply chain restructurings, which provides pertinent context for managing multiples drivers, business and regulatory changes and stakeholders for Net Zero and sustainability transitions. Alenka holds a Master’s in Sustainability from the University of Cambridge and a degree from the European Business School in London. She is an accredited member of the ICAEW, where she also serves on the Sustainability Committee, and the CIOT in the UK.
PLENARY III: CBAM and the impact on developing countries (Friday 20 September)
Moderator
Mr Duane
Newman
(EY, South Africa)
Duane is a Tax Partner at EY, based in Johannesburg and serves as the Africa Sustainability Tax Leader, specialising in sustainability taxes and incentives. Duane has been advising on sustainability issues since 2008 and attended his first COP meeting was COP15 in Copenhagen. Duane has been involved in tax policy design specifically on carbon tax in South Africa and other global EY projects. Duane focuses on two main industries, namely automotive and mining using his trade, incentive and sustainability knowledge. He specialises in advising companies on carbon tax, carbon credits and CBAM. Duane qualified as a chartered accountant and is registered as a Master Tax Practitioner at SAIT where he has been a board member and founding chairman of the Environmental Tax and Incentive working groups. Duane has held numerous chair roles in chambers of commerce over 20 years.
Ms Susanne
Aakerfeldt
(World Bank)
Susanne Aakerfeldt is a Senior Adviser at the World Bank, Fiscal and Sustainable Growth Unit, seconded by the Swedish Government since April 2024, focusing on climate aspects of fiscal policy. During 30 years at the Swedish Ministry of Finance, she has been instrumental in fine-tuning the Swedish carbon tax as well as pursuing green tax reforms and aiming for the EU legislation to reflect the Polluter Pays Principle. From January 2021 until August 2022, she was part of the CBAM team at the EU Commission, being the lead legal drafter of the proposal. Returning to the Ministry, she took part in the CBAM negotiations in Council and contributed to its national implementation. Until March 2024 she served as Head of the Swedish Delegation to the EU CBAM Committee. She is since many years extensively engaged in global climate policy within the framework of the UN (as Co-Coordinator of UN Subcommittee on Environmental Taxation and contributor to the 2021 UN Handbook on Carbon Taxation for Developing Countries), as well as within the Coalition of Finance Ministers for Climate Action. Susanne has a Master of Laws degree from Uppsala University and received the Kreiser Award in 2020.
Ms Karen
Bosman
(Wesgro)
Karen Bosman is Head of Advocacy and Advisory at Wesgro, the official tourism, trade and investment promotion agency for Cape Town and the Western Cape. Karen is educated in international economic law and policy. Her focus at Wesgro includes the competitiveness of the Western Cape economy in a changing international economic context, with a particular focus on international trade, investment and tourism. Karen previously spent time working in Washington D.C. where her research focussed on international trade and investment law, regional integration, and enabling legal frameworks in Africa. She has also worked as a legislative advisor in the South African Parliament, and at a commercial law firm in Cape Town. She holds degrees in law (LLB) and in political science, philosophy and economics (B.A. PPE) from Stellenbosch University and a master in international economic law (LLM) from Georgetown University in the United States.
Mr Christopher
Morgan
(KPMG UK)
Chris Morgan’s background is in international tax and EU tax. Chris became Head of Tax Policy for KPMG UK in 2011 and in 2014 spearheaded KPMG UK’s Responsible Tax Programme. Chris’ role is now Head of Global Responsible Tax Programme which brings all stakeholders into a constructive debate about how to make tax systems work for all. The project has actively included input from organisations such as the UN, IMF, World Bank and OECD as well as from a wide range of Civil Society organisations. One of the areas of focus of the Programme is tax and the environment. Since 2021 Chris has run roundtables and global seminars looking at border carbon adjustments, compliance with WTO rules, the difference between incentives and tax, and the impact of the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) on developing countries. Chris has also authored a number of papers looking at how tax could facilitate investment into decarbonisation especially in developing countries, the circular economy and a Carbon Added Tax. Chris is a member of the UN Sub-committee on Environmental Taxes and collaborated in producing the UN Handbook on Carbon Taxation. He is the lead drafter of a paper on the impact of border carbon adjustment mechanisms on developing countries.
Mr Abel
Sakhau
(Sanlam)
Abel Sakhau is the Chief Sustainability Officer of Sanlam, the largest non-banking financial services group on the African continent, with a leading niche presence in Asia. He is a Sustainability and Climate Change strategist with 16 years of experience in the mining industry and a combined 22 years of work experience. He is a qualified environmental scientist from the University of Witwatersrand and holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Leadership and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Stellenbosch University. His expertise is in sustainability strategy development, managing professional and specialised business units in climate change, environmental management, and sustainability. Abel has been in various leadership and management positions within and outside his current organisation. He currently serves on the board of the National Business Initiative (NBI) and has previously served as the Chair of the Regulating Committee for Meteorological Services and is a past president of the National Association for Clean Air, South Africa.