Daily Dispatch
Day of reckoning is a necessity
ONE does not have to look far to see that a day of reckoning is dawning in South Africa. Greedy people and their networks or conglomerations that profess to serve society and/or act according to high ethical and professional standards but do nothing of the sort, are being exposed as thieves and looters and being flushed out.
This is not only evident in politics. The focus is currently a clutch of international companies closely associated with individuals at the highest levels of government.
Among them, Bell Pottinger, the UK PR company outed as a bloodthirsty hand-maiden of the Gupta-Zuma cartel, deservedly continues to implode.
Meanwhile in the US and SA the international consultancy firm McKinsey is in the process of being charged with fraud‚ racketeering and collusion for facilitating multibillion-rand coal supply tenders between Eskom and the Gupta family.
And the SA branch of KPMG, an auditing firm that professes, as a core value, “above all, we act with integrity”, stands professionally naked after conceding their complicity in a political attack on former Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan.
Yesterday constitutional law expert Professor Pierre de Vos, said KPMG had likely transgressed anti-corruption laws.
Interestingly the unacceptability of KPMG’s behaviour is being made quickly evident in the marketplace itself. Within a matter of weeks the auditors have lost six of their biggest multi-billion clients, two of them this week. The wheel is certainly turning. And so it must. Multi-national companies that pretend to operate according to professional codes yet act like vampires should never find a place in this country. And if implicated in criminal activity they must be charged and vigorously prosecuted.
Unfortunately, big business is not alone in its breach of acceptable conduct.
Beyond the very obvious example of President Jacob Zuma and his cronies, professionals and office-bearers at various levels of the state, continue to trample over stipulated codes. Yet the consequences come far too slowly, if at all.
Yesterday, for example, we reported that 396 Eastern Cape government officials had been off work for periods varying from three months to six years, at a cost of R162million.
Premier Phumulo Masualle says this is due, in part, to a misunderstanding over how to implement medical boarding policies.
While there may be some merit to this explanation and there may be some legitimate cases in the mix, six years on sick leave? Seriously?
Such disregard for the acceptable parameters of employment would never be tolerated in the commercial world.
Nor should it in a government that has vowed to serve and protect all of its people.
The lack of consequences for ethical, professional and contractual breaches is rendering our society lawless, from the top to the bottom, and threatening our viability as a nation. A reckoning is a necessity, just as KPMG’s six ex-clients have shown.