Speak up, private sector

Goldfields needs to come clean on its reasons for retaining KPMG as its auditor. How can the company claim to adhere to ethical codes and reporting standards (such as the Global Reporting Initiative) and yet retain KPMG? This seems to be reprehensible given that Goldfields exists because of SA’s mineral wealth. It has had access to these resources and to a readily available labour force, but when some company does things that has torn the heart out of this country we get a limp-wristed response — “we will continue to monitor”.

Other companies have dumped KPMG and good for them, but it is all far too polished with polite talk about rotating auditors and managing risk. Let’s get real and state things as they are.

KPMG has been a major player in state capture and has facilitated the movement of vast amounts of money out of the country, using taxpayers’ money to pay for an outrageously expensive wedding and so on. All of this has had a major economic effect.

I once worked for a big audit company and there was enormous pressure to avoid giving clients “bad news”. Fortunately, I was never placed in a position of being forced to give clients the answer they wanted, but I can see that things can move swiftly from dressing things up prettily to doing the client’s bidding.

Stand up and be counted, private sector. Don’t be so lily-livered in your response to the wrongdoing of KPMG or any other company guilty of similarly despicable behaviour.

Mary-Jane Morris

Sedgefield