FOOTNOTES
HILARY JOFFE: Auditing profession needs to acknowledge the crisis it is in
The profession seems to have lost its way and the values which used to anchor it
When Auditor-General Kimi Makwethu announced this week he would terminate all government contracts with KPMG and Nkonki, he was scathing about the entire audit profession in SA. Who can blame him? KPMG’s disastrous audit relationship with failed VBS Mutual Bank is the final straw at the firm, which has blown the second chance it was given after its Gupta and South African Revenue Service work almost caused it to implode in 2017. Nkonki sold itself to the Guptas, it seems, without considering how this might affect its independence or integrity. But the list goes on. KPMG was VBS’s external auditor but PwC was the failed bank’s internal auditor. It hasn’t faced the same scrutiny but it surely should, given the horror story emerging about VBS’s financial and liquidity management. PwC was already in the news for unqualified audit reports for years given to effectively bankrupt South African Airways.Then there is Deloitte, which signed off Steinhoff’s audits and evidently missed catastro...
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