The South African auditing profession dare not let the crisis that has rocked it go to waste, says Bernard Agulhas, CEO of the Independent Regulatory Board for Auditors."It's an opportunity for us to take a hard look at the ethics of the profession and see if we can get it back to where it was."Auditors need to refocus on what a good-quality audit, independence and service to the client should mean, he says."We need to get ourselves back to having the reputation we used to have."Until last year the South African auditing profession was ranked No1 in the world by the World Economic Forum for its reporting and auditing standards. Now it is No30."Auditors become complacent. Any profession needs to go through a crisis so that it can refocus its attention on where it should be."He says the current crisis has highlighted the need for mandatory audit rotation to ensure that audit firms are properly independent from the companies they audit.He believes the crisis clearly demonstrates that t...
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