Deloitte treads carefully after implosion of companies
Auditing firm refuses work worth R131m in 2018 as it seeks to protect its reputation
Auditing firm Deloitte's first public transparency report, released on Thursday, shows that it refused to work with more than 170 entities in the current financial year. Some of the companies were implicated in state capture, it said. The firm, which was auditing Steinhoff and African Bank when irregularities were uncovered, said it had re-examined its client book and would think twice about working with some of the flagged companies in future. “Our stance is that no one client is worth our entire reputation,” Deloitte CEO Lwazi Bam said on Thursday. “Where we’ve felt that the risk was too high, particularly where we felt the levels of governance were not at a level we were comfortable that if issues arose we’d have people charged with governance supporting our position, we have walked away.” Deloitte’s report shows that in 2018, the firm declined audit contracts to the value of R31m due to various concerns. It declined a further R100m for consulting and forensic work, but mostly be...
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