Markus Jooste to be smoked out of hiding
The man at the centre of the Steinhoff accounting fraud refused to account to parliament for what happened. But parliamentarians could now decide to subpoena Markus Jooste to finally answer to the public
"In his absence, Jooste was painted in parliament as the man who single-handedly orchestrated a huge fraud on shareholders that was undetectable to the board. However, some feel he must have had accomplices" It is a measure of the character of former Steinhoff’s former CEO Markus Jooste that, when called to account to parliament for his role in erasing more than R300bn from the stock market, Jooste sent a lawyer’s letter back saying "no thanks". Jooste, aloof and gruff even before his fall from grace in December, had been dodging accountability for months. In November, before Steinhoff’s implosion, he had dodged questions from auditing firm Deloitte about the murky European entities at the heart of "accounting irregularities" at the company. Then he dodged Steinhoff’s board when it asked him to explain. When he could hide no more, he quit. Last week, three parliamentary committees summoned the company’s directors, as well as Jooste, to explain what had happened. While Steinhoff chai...
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