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Meet the Judges
Meet the Judges

Conrad van Greunen

Conrad van Greunen holds a PhD in Commerce and is currently the Dean of the Faculty of Commerce at Educor – the largest private education supplier in Southern Africa. He started his career as a lecturer at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University and has since lectured at various other private higher education institutions at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. Conrad has also developed and facilitated various training programmes, focusing on financial management and economics, with organisations such as Eskom, African Bank (ABIL), Ashanti, Mercedes Financial Services and the Nigerian Bottling Company (NBC). In 2017 he joined the Advtech Group (Central Academic Team at the Independent Institute of Education) where he held the position of Senior Head of Programme and where he was mainly responsible for managing a portfolio of economics modules. Besides education management and facilitation, Conrad actively participates in research. He is a reviewer for selected journals and has also published several articles that make a valuable contribution to knowledge-intensive organisations. Being an academic at heart, he is currently pursuing his second PhD, which is testimony of his unwavering focus and dedication to add value to knowledge-intensive organisations in today’s competitive knowledge-driven economy.

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Wilhelmina Smith

Elmine was employed for 9 years in the Department of Education at Vista University, later Central University of Technology in Welkom, Free State where she obtained an M.Ed as well as 2 PhDs – one in Economic Literacy and one in Accounting Methodology.

At CUT she joined the Business Management Department where she lectured third year Accounting Methodology and was also involved in Post Graduate Supervision in Honours, Masters and PhD level.

In 2011 Elmine took up a post at the University of Fort Hare (Alice, Eastern Cape) in the Department of Business Management where she was responsible for lecturing Marketing Research to final year B Comm students. In the 3 years being employed at UFH, she was the sole supervisor of 28 Honours students and 10 Masters students in various aspects of Business Management and Marketing.

She also co-authored 11 articles published in international academic journals during that period. One article was read by 17 publishers and was requested to appear in book format.

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Dikgang Motsepe

Dikgang is an Economist and is currently a Senior Lecture at Wits School of Governance, focusing on macro-economic policy, development, and public finance. Before joining academia, he worked as a Senior Economist at the NEAPAD Secretariat in the office of Prof. Nkuhlu, the Economic Advisor to President T. M. Mbeki and Chairman of the NEPAD Steering Committee; Programme Manager/Economist at the Business Trust, managing the community investment programme focusing on the Presidential Nodal Economic Development Programme; and a financial market economist at the South African Reserve Bank. He has gained experience in the field of financial markets and development economics.

Dikgang obtained a Masters in Development Finance with the University of Stellenbosch Business School, and both a BCom and BCom (Hons) in Economics from the University of Cape Town.

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Mohammed Jahed

Professor Jahed holds a PhD in Economics and has obtained experience and expertise in public economics and finance, macroeconomic policy and management in the public sector. He has gained extensive experience in Academia.

He has served as senior economic planning specialist at the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) He was appointed Deputy Director General: Office of the Premier Limpopo Province, responsible for economic growth and development, economic policy, economic planning, transformation and provincial administration. Prof Jahed joined the South African business sector representative group, the National Business Initiative, as Director of Economics. From 2003 to 2005, he was seconded by the South African Presidency as Chief Economist and Head of Policy, Strategy and Research of the NEPAD Secretariat. Prof. Jahed has been Professor at the University of Witwatersrand in the Graduate School of Public and Development Management (2005-2010). He was subsequently appointed Divisional Executive: Policy and Integration at the DBSA. Prof Jahed was appointed as the Director of the Parliamentary Budget Office from 2013-2018. In January 2019, Prof Jahed was appointed as Professor in the School of Public Management, Governance and Public Policy, College of Business and Economics.

Prof Jahed currently serves on the NEPAD Business Foundation Board.

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Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen

Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen is public policy analyst with over 20 years of experience. He has worked as an independent analyst since 2007. His client have included universities, non-governmental organisations and science councils. As an entrepreneur, he has build several online applications focused on making markets work for small businesses. This includes ZApreneur, which focuses on South African small businesses. More recently he has created a lead service for researchers and analysts called Think Workers.

He previously served as head of the secretariat for the People’s Budget Campaign. He serves on the board of the South African Labour Bulletin. He holds a Masters in Management from University of the Witwatersrand. His current research areas include public expenditure and inequality, and small business development.

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Omano Edigheji

Omano was with the Centre for Policy Studies as a Senior Researcher where he also coordinated the Centre’s research programme. A political economist by training, Omano’s research interests are broadly in the area of International Political Economy, with a focus on Globalisation and the State in developing countries, and on issues of governance, democratisation, civil society and development in Africa in the context of globalisation, as well as state-society relations in developing countries. Omano also researches on South African political economy, including Black Economic Empowerment.

He is in the editorial board of the journal, GLOBALIZATIONS. He is a regular commentor on South African radio, television and newspapers. Omano is currently based in Abuja and he commutes between SA and Nigeria. He works for Zeezi Oasis Leadership Inspiration Limited.

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Yumna Ebrahim

Yumna holds a masters degree in economics, and is a practicing economist in the private sector. She works as an independent consultant, and also lectures economics part-time at public and private institutions. She has experience in economic analysis and has also worked on a variety of consulting projects to various organisations. Yumna has been involved with the Competition since 2009, when she won the prize for first runner-up and since then she has assisted as a virtual tutor, and a Filter Panellist.

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53rd COMPETITION ENTRIES ARE NOW CLOSED

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For queries about the competition, please contact the Budget Speech Competition administrator.