‘Crooking’ the books — turning the lens on private sector shenanigans

“You see those logos of big companies at career expos… and wonder: What do these companies actually do? Well, lucky for you, we’ve got a handy video to guide you through the jungle that is South Africa’s corporate sector.”

This time on Politically Aweh, South Africa’s wittiest online satirical news show, hilarious host KG Mokgadi gets hot under the collar about private sector corruption, assisted by a “career guidance counsellor” from the “South African Institute of Crony Accountants and other Professionals”. 

Together they break down some of the biggest corporate heists South Africa has ever seen and how they were aided and abetted by the very companies that were meant to spot and stop the rot.

https://youtu.be/US8ayGPa0G8

By the time the house of cards that was Steinhoff finally collapsed, this multinational corporation with more than 40 brands and the poster child for globalised South African success had overstated its profits by $7.4-billion. 

According to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners,  the longer the duration of fraud committed, the greater the losses: “Only 7% of frauds will last longer than five years, (and the Steinhoff International fraud lasted for) eight years … the longer fraud goes on, the higher the damages that are resulting from that fraud.” 

So how did it go on for so long, for so much, before the stealing came to light?

According to Financial Sector Conduct Authority of South Africa investigator Alex Pascoe, the hype surrounding Steinhoff and its former CEO, Markus Jooste, left many people completely blindsided by the unfolding events. 

“Because of the group’s size, the company was subject to a fragmented audit, and minimal control aided the fraud.” So essentially they were too big to be suspected of out and out theft. 

KG just calls it like it is: “Because it’s white… collar crime, we don’t call it corruption, or stealing, we call it ‘accounting irregularities’ or ‘misappropriation of funds’. For decades, their auditing firm, Deloot, sorry, I mean Deloitte, said everything was cool and normal.”

But everything was not cool and normal. 

The Steinhoff scandal is South Africa’s largest corporate fraud, resulting in more than R250-billion (that’s 250 thousand millions, people) in losses for investors who had entrusted their precious savings to the company through various investment vehicles. 

This includes the Public Investment Corporation, which manages public sector workers’ pension funds. And just like government corruption, there is a lot more ass covering than taking responsibility and making reparations to the ordinary people whose lives were gutted. 

Ironically, in a recent media statement the ANC welcomed the conviction of the former CFO of Steinhoff, Andries “Ben” la Grange and sentencing to “a 10 year imprisonment, with 5 years suspended by the Pretoria Specialised Crimes Court”. 

Improvement