ANN CROTTY: The audit industry’s unaccountable power
Greater consolidation means less choice for clients
SA’s auditing industry will, with any luck, be turned completely on its head by the time PwC completes what is certain to be a marathon investigation of the Steinhoff accounts. Sadly, on the basis of previous experience, it’s unlikely there’s that much luck around. As KPMG’s clients battle with the big "stay or go" question, Deloitte’s customers must be hoping desperately that PwC’s work doesn’t turn up anything too sinister. It’s unlikely the local industry could cope with an exodus from two major firms at the same time. In just the past week or so we had Telkom explaining how it was recommending the appointment of PwC and SizweNtsalubaGobodo as the group’s new external auditors. The recommendation followed an "extensive and robust" process. There’s no doubt it was robust, but it’s hard to imagine it was extensive. Given that Telkom was retiring EY after 20 years and that recommending KPMG would have been problematic given the auditor-general’s ruling around that company, an "exten...
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