KPMG suspends partners linked to Gupta work

Auditing firm KPMG SA has suspended its lead audit engagement partner and is relieving two other partners of their board and executive positions, pending the outcome of a review of the work the company did for Gupta-linked companies, reports Business Day. However, the company is mum on the identities of the partners. KPMG SA’s CEO, Trevor Hoole, has admitted that the global consultancy should have stopped working for the controversial family sooner than it did. Hoole said that while the last audit opinions for the group were signed off on the February 28 2015 year-end, it was ‘now clear … KPMG should have resigned earlier’ than March 2016. KPMG has initiated a review of the work done for the Guptas, that, Hoole said, would be ‘independently’ led by KPMG International. Hoole said the company understood the criticism of four KPMG partners’ attendance of the 2013 Gupta wedding and accepted that they should not have attended. The company ended its 15-year relationship with the Gupta family after the public protector initiated an investigation of their dealings.

The asset manager that fired KPMG as its auditor last month says the company has finally done the right thing by suspending employees to conduct a probe. City Press reports that that the Sygnia Asset Management fired KPMG over its alleged role in state capture as well as unhappiness about KPMG’s probe of allegations of a ‘rogue unit’ at the SA Revenue Service. Sygnia CEO Magda Wierzycka is quoted in the report as saying: ‘From the press release, it looks like KPMG International (KPMGI) is now involved and the pressure might have come from them, as well as from numerous corporate clients who finally started asking the right questions. I am, however, surprised that it took KPMG SA so long to arrive at the right conclusion. I strongly believe that, as a gesture of goodwill towards the citizens of South Africa, KPMG should donate all the fees they made from the numerous Gupta companies they provided services to, to charities and to civil rights organisations fighting corruption.’