Mark Lamberti on corruption in the private sector
If Cyril Ramaphosa’s election is a call to clean up government, what about private sector ethics? Mark Lamberti answers
In the wake of Steinhoff, do you think SA business has an ethics problem? I think there are people in this country who are saying: “This country is going to hell in a handbasket and therefore let’s rip it off while we can.” And there were other people saying: “Now’s our turn and let’s take what we can.” It really does come back to leadership and the behaviour of one’s peer group. Very few of us have an unassailable moral compass, very few of us can say that, regardless of circumstances, [we] would do the right thing. .. [but] I think that when you start to have a growing body of people behaving in a certain way, that becomes the peer group. .. Clearing out at the top will ensure that there is ethics in business. There are any number of SA businesses run by really ethical leaders, and that filters down. Ethical deterioration is not a general societal thing, it happens in selected businesses — it starts with the guy at the top. You were pretty vocal about KPMG and SAP last year — so h...
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