KPMG’s global chairman, John Veihmeyer, has issued an apology after the firm faced criticism over its audit work for the Gupta family and a separate report it produced for the South African Revenue Service
In a statement, Veihmeyer said: ‘I sincerely apologise for what went wrong in KPMG South Africa. This is not who we are.
‘KPMG International undertook an investigation, with the help of independent legal advisers, which found a number of failings in a report prepared for the South African Revenue Service (SARS) and in the decisions made, over time, to continue working for the Guptas. KPMG South Africa made serious mistakes and errors of judgement in these engagements.’
The internal investigation did not find any evidence of illegal behaviour or corruption by KPMG partners or staff but found ‘work that fell considerably short of KPMG’s standards’.
On 15 September 2017, chief executive of KPMG’s South African arm, Trevor Hoole, resigned with the firm’s chairman, chief operating officer and five senior partners also departing following an internal investigation into the work the firm carried out on behalf of the Gupta family and a report it produced for the South African Revenue Service.
Three days later on 18 September Sasfin Holdings, a South African banking and financial services group, dropped KPMG as its auditor after 18 years citing ‘well-publicised concerns.
Veihmeyer said: ‘The work on these specific engagements is not reflective of the quality of KPMG’s work in South Africa over many years, or indeed the work we do for clients globally.
‘We are determined to learn from the failings that we have found in these specific client activities. In particular, we will further strengthen the monitoring of which clients we choose to work with and how we handle potentially sensitive client engagements.
‘The public, our clients and our 200,000 people across the globe rightly expect us to demonstrate that we consistently hold ourselves to the highest standards.
‘We are committed to making sure this happens.’
