Markus Jooste shifts the blame
EMBATTLED former Steinhoff chief executive Markus Jooste blamed others when accounting for the “biggest financial scandal” in South Africa.
He appeared before four committees of Parliament to account yesterday.
The embattled South African retail holding company lost billions when its share price dropped from R51.40 to below R4.50 overnight, while it reported a loss of R169 billion.
Late last year, Steinhoff’s share price plunged by 60%.
The Public Investment Corporation, which invests on behalf of South African state workers, lost more than R20 billion.
“I chose the wrong partner and we went into territories when we shouldn’t have. But the discussion up to now and the allegations were around accounting issues, and therefore I participated and gave my full cooperation for two years.
“I took a view I took in December (to resign) and said I will take it like a man for the mistakes I have made. For that I have lost my career at Steinhoff,” said Jooste.
Steinhoff entered into a strategic partnership with Austria’s Andreas Seifert group. The partnership ended in 2015 when Seifert allegedly did not have enough money to purchase Austrian furniture group Kika/Leiner which competed with Seifert’s stores.
Jooste said Seifert was to blame for the crisis as he took the group’s information to German authorities, alleging financial irregularities and misconduct in tax management at its European subsidiaries.
A probe by the German authorities and two of Steinhoff’s independent probes found that there were no financial irregularities.
But the group’s auditors Deloitte insisted on another investigation.
Jooste told Parliament that he resigned from the group’s board because his proposal that it immediately terminate the services of Deloitte as auditor, appoint a new set of auditors, and publish unaudited financial statements on the scheduled date, was not agreed to.
Jooste also charged that the company’s share price had dropped because unaudited financial statements were not published on a specific scheduled date, and affected investor’s confidence.
“My advice and Dr (Christo) Wiese (former supervisory board chair) agreed with that was that we made an announcement that day that the audit had not been completed but that unaudited results will be released by Wednesday, December 6.