Auditors and the sanctimony of the chosen
PETER BRUCE: Auditor firms: install once, service forever
KPMG, when asked to jump, said how high. Now it’s in for the high jump. But the problems run much deeper
So, it turns out KPMG has done SA not one but two favours, in the space of about a decade, that we shall never forget. First it compiled the 783 counts of fraud and racketeering that formed the basis of the 18 charges against President Jacob Zuma before he was elected in 2009, and it did the investigation for the SA Revenue Service (Sars) that got former finance minister Pravin Gordhan hounded out of treasury. Thanks for nothing. What’s extraordinary is that both favours were signed off by the same man, Johan van der Walt. So poor was the “investigation” into the Sars so-called Rogue Unit that KPMG has since revoked it. Too late, however, for the country. For the president though, the decision to disown the report is like manna from heaven. It means KPMG is so incompetent at its job even Zuma’s legal team, those serial losers, would have no trouble batting away the fraud charges if he were ever to face them in a court of law. The cost to SA of KPMG’s approach to investigations is be...
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