LIKELY QUESTIONS
- How would you develop and implement a financial strategy for MOWASSCO that supports service delivery, sustainability, and regulatory compliance?
- What key financial risks do you expect in a water and sanitation utility, and how would you design controls to mitigate them?
- Tell us about your experience preparing budgets, monitoring budget performance, and presenting financial results to senior leadership or a Board.
- How have you improved accounting accuracy, timeliness of reporting, or management information in a previous organization?
- What is your approach to debt management, revenue protection, and strengthening cash flow in an organization with large receivables?
- Describe your experience working with auditors, statutory reporting requirements, and ensuring compliance with financial policies and regulations.
- How would you evaluate the financial viability of a major capital project, such as network expansion, plant upgrade, or infrastructure rehabilitation?
- How do you lead, motivate, and performance-manage a finance team in a busy and dynamic environment, especially during change such as ERP implementation or policy reform?

BEHAVIOURAL QUESTIONS
- Tell us about a time you identified a major financial control weakness and fixed it.
Model approach: Situation: Briefly describe the organization, the weak control area, and the risk exposure. Task: Explain your responsibility for strengthening controls and protecting resources. Action: Describe how you diagnosed the root cause, redesigned processes, introduced approvals/reconciliations/segregation of duties, trained staff, and monitored compliance. Result: Quantify reduced losses, audit improvements, faster close, or stronger compliance.

- Describe a time you had to present difficult financial information to a Board or senior leadership team.
Model approach: Situation: Set out the sensitive issue, such as budget overruns, cash shortfall, or adverse audit findings. Task: Clarify your role in informing decision makers and recommending action. Action: Explain how you prepared clear analysis, highlighted risks, gave options, answered challenging questions, and influenced agreement. Result: Show the decision taken, financial impact, and how credibility and governance were strengthened.

- Give an example of when you led a finance team through a significant change.
Model approach: Situation: Outline the change, such as ERP rollout, policy overhaul, restructuring, or tighter reporting deadlines. Task: State your leadership responsibility for maintaining performance while implementing change. Action: Describe stakeholder engagement, staff coaching, timeline management, issue escalation, and how you handled resistance. Result: Highlight adoption rates, process efficiency, reporting quality, and team capability improvements.

- Tell us about a time you improved cash flow or debt collection performance.
Model approach: Situation: Describe the receivables or liquidity challenge and why it mattered operationally. Task: Explain your accountability for improving collections and financial stability. Action: Cover debtor analysis, segmentation, policy enforcement, follow-up mechanisms, stakeholder coordination, and monitoring KPIs. Result: Quantify reduction in aged debt, improvement in collection rates, or stronger cash position.

SMART QUESTIONS TO ASK
- What are the top three financial priorities for the new General Manager - Finance in the first 12 months?
- What are the most pressing issues currently facing MOWASSCO in areas such as revenue collection, debt management, audit findings, or budget discipline?
- How does the Board measure success for this role, and what would strong performance look like by the end of the first year?
- What finance systems and ERP tools are currently in use, and are there any planned upgrades or process transformation initiatives?
- How does the finance function partner with operations, commercial, and technical teams when evaluating investments and improving overall utility performance?

RED FLAGS TO WATCH FOR
- Vague answers about recurring audit issues, weak controls, or unresolved compliance matters.
- Signs that the Board or senior leadership expects firefighting without giving the finance function authority, systems support, or staffing.
- Heavy emphasis on political or external pressure in financial decisions without clear commitment to governance, transparency, and professional independence.