STATE CAPTURE
CAROL PATON: Heat is on for firms that go along with unethical practices
"Firms that care about their reputation are going to need to think more carefully before becoming hired guns in the state-capture saga"
It has been gratifying to see global consultancy McKinsey outed for its dodgy dealings with Eskom and Transnet through the Gupta-related company Trillian. Trillian, it appears, has made a great business out of being paid for work it has not done, an achievement that depended much on McKinsey’s reputation and ability to win the contracts. It took advocate Geoff Budlender, who had been asked by Trillian chairman Tokyo Sexwale to investigate several contracts, scarcely any time at all to unmask the farce. This was even though both Trillian and McKinsey had done their best to withhold information from Budlender. The schadenfreude comes from the fact that while politicians are frequently caught in the act of corruption, big corporate consultancies and law firms, which aid and abet all sorts of malfeasance, usually escape with their reputations intact.With every South African state-owned enterprise having been embroiled in some kind of political infighting and internal strife, holding on ...
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