Despite losing more than 1,000 staff members and R1bn in annual revenue following revelations of KPMG’s handling of the Gupta and VBS Mutual Bank audits and a discredited forensic report for the SA Revenue Service (Sars), the auditing firm’s executive chairperson Wiseman Nkuhlu believes it can still survive.
“KPMG can be saved. I believe we’ve hit the bottom,” Nkuhlu, who served as economic adviser to former president Thabo Mbeki, said in an interview on Wednesday.
KPMG lost 15 audit partners and several high-profile clients, including Gold Fields, Sasfin, Sygnia and Absa (then Barclays Africa), after its reputation was gutted by the scandals since the start of 2017. Early in 2017 the firm was accused of helping the Gupta family to evade tax and its own internal investigation showed that it was slow in responding to red flags on audit work done for Gupta-owned entities...