You know what’s not a good look? Getting caught up in aiding and abetting the likes of Jacob Zuma and the Guptas with their State Capture project.
That’s why my sympathies for KPMG are severely limited, with the fallout from those allegations still chugging along.
Alarm bells were sounded back in April, when they lost one of their biggest clients – none other than the South African government.
Fast forward to this month, more than a year after the company issued an apology for its conduct, and KPMG continues to lose staff and clients.
Reporting below from Times LIVE:
A team responsible for US cross-border transactions in Africa quit because of limited workflow, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information isn’t public…
In addition, Dimension Data Holdings Plc became the latest firm to desert KPMG, passing an R80-million auditing contract to rival Ernst & Young, the people said. KPMG confirmed that Dimension Data changed auditors in June. Dimension Data didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The latest revelations show KPMG is struggling to restore trust since being criticised last year over work done for the Gupta family, who are accused of using political connections including Zuma to siphon off state funds. The firm was also forced to withdraw the findings of a report it compiled for South Africa’s tax agency that was used as evidence in a police probe against former Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan.
Even though heads did roll last year, with the head of KPMG’s South African office and seven other senior executives quitting, trust is still hard to come by.
After all, even the best case scenario is that they were captured by greed.
In the midst of all this, the PR spin continues:
“KPMG South Africa has made a number of significant changes to its leadership, governance and audit quality controls and continues to work tirelessly to restore trust in the firm,” a KPMG spokesman said by email. The firm introduced a number of safeguards and is encouraged by the number of clients that continue to retain its services, the spokesman said.
It’s true that they are retaining clients, but it’s also true that many are headed for the hills. Having had 3 400 clients on the books as of September last year, the number is now closer to 2 200.
Perhaps of the moral of the story is not to be immoral in the first place.
[source:timeslive]
