The Editor’s Desk: KPMG and VBS – another day, another scandal

DUBLIN — The folks at KPMG complain, sometimes, that their critics (including Biznews) are unfair and too quick to pass judgement. But evidence has emerged that KPMG played a role in facilitating the VBS bank heist. Add this to the auditing firm's role in a laundry list of scandals around the world, from state capture in South Africa to shenanigans at Carillion in the UK, and you have a distinct picture of an organisation with some real ethics problems. Obviously, this is not to say that everyone who works at KPMG is on the take. There are many hard-working and honest auditors there – some even appear in the VBS story, trying to raise questions about the bank's books during the audit process. But with so many problems and so many scandals, it's getting very hard to believe that there is not some kind of rot at KPMG, or at the very least, a desperate need to revise ethics controls and start to take these issues seriously. In this episode, Alec Hogg and I talk about KPMG's role in the VBS heist. We discuss the lessons that the seeming failure of Saudi Arabia's investment push has for South Africa and we reflect on the upcoming Uber IPO. – Felicity Duncan

Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of the Editor's Desk. This is BizNews Radio and I'm Felicity Duncan. With me, as always, is the editor in chief of BizNews, Alec Hogg. Alec, you spent a lot of time this week, and in fact the week before, looking at the unfolding VBS story, studying the report form Advocate Motau. And one of the things that I wanted to pick-up on, which you talked about in your podcast this week, is the role that KPMG played. It's emerging that they actually played almost an active role in facilitating what happened at VBS.

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