Paul O’Sullivan takes aim at McKinsey again: ‘Own up about bribes to Anoj Singh!’

JOHANNESBURG — Investigative sleuth Paul O’Sullivan is not letting up in demanding accountability from consultancy firm McKinsey. A mea culpa from McKinsey’s boss Kevin Sneader earlier this month increasingly appears to be hollow especially following a City Press report over the weekend that revealed how the consultancy firm’s fleecing of Eskom and Transnet was much bigger than previously thought. (Transnet is said to have paid McKinsey a total of just over R3.1bn over the years according to a draft report from National Treasury.) The City Press report further details how McKinsey sent Anoj Singh – former Transnet and Eskom CFO – on lavish junkets after sealing lucrative state deals. O’Sullivan again inks a letter to McKinsey Africa’s boss Saf Yeboah. Take a read… – Gareth van Zyl

By Paul O’Sullivan*

Dear Saf,

On 09th July 2018 in front of an audience of hundreds, McKinsey’s new Global Managing Partner, Kevin Sneader tried to demonstrate that McKinsey had come clean and also that they had found no wrongdoing on the part of their staff. He was merciless in the manner he dealt with some of the questions, that sought to accuse McKinsey of wrongdoing.

Ironically, on that date you had already replied to questions from treasury, requesting you to explain the ‘gratification’ you had piled onto Anoj Singh, whilst he was in the process of opening doors for you at Transnet and later at Eskom.

Your response to Treasury was nothing more than an admission of guilt, that you had indeed BRIBED Anoj Singh, with lavish trips overseas, in terms of today’s article in City Press:

https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/treasury-drops-looting-bomb-20180729-4

The report states that a day after the recommendation to increase McKinsey’s fee for its advisory services on the 1 064 locomotives tender from R25 million to R49 million in February 2012, “an email, titled 2012 CFO Forum–Invitation”, was sent to Singh, inviting him to London for a conference of CFOs in June. McKinsey, the report found, facilitated Singh’s eight-day trip, including securing him a visa for Dubai and accommodation at London’s five-star hotel, The Langham, as well as at the Sheraton Frankfurt Airport Hotel. McKinsey responded to investigators by stating: “Mr Singh travelled to London to attend the CFOs’ forum, a widely attended annual event that McKinsey has hosted since 2003, attended by dozens of prominent CFOs in different industries from around the world. “During Mr Singh’s two days’ stay in London, McKinsey also helped arrange meetings for him with multiple financial institutions focused on advancing funding strategies for Transnet. “McKinsey does not have additional information regarding Mr Singh’s one-night stay at the Sheraton Frankfurt Airport Hotel upon departure from London, but we understand that … [he] met with one or more additional financial institutions in Dubai – which McKinsey also helped to arrange – before returning to Johannesburg.” A month after Singh returned from the McKinsey-sponsored London trip, “there was a further procurement process to appoint McKinsey to provide advisory services to Transnet for the procurement of the 1 064 locomotives”. “We determined that a Transnet Acquisition Council meeting was held on July 18 2012 [barely a month after Singh came back from the London CFOs’ conference trip on June 16] and that it recommended that consideration be given to the business being awarded to the overall highest-ranking bidder i.e. McKinsey & Company… [and] that approval be obtained from the group chief executive [Molefe],” the report states. The following year, Singh again attended the CFO conference and McKinsey booked his flights, this time via Moscow. McKinsey confirmed to investigators that it arranged the trip, saying: “Singh took part in meetings that McKinsey helped to arrange with rail and energy companies and financial institutions, among other large companies. McKinsey’s understanding is these meetings were focused on capital execution and capital projection acceleration for Transnet, and that they took place between June 8 and 13 in Germany, Dubai and Russia.” Singh, the Treasury report found, did not only allegedly help McKinsey; he also allegedly assisted Regiments Capital – of which controversial Eric Wood was a founder – to become McKinsey’s South African partner for the tender by recommending that Nedbank Capital be axed over a conflict of interest. The report further states that Regiments was appointed after Nedbank Capital was removed, and McKinsey’s contract value increased “from R35.2 million to R267 million”. “Various addendums were concluded between Transnet, McKinsey and Regiments which resulted in the contract fee increase from R35.2 million to R267 million,” the report states. “The increase … was due to scope extensions over a period of 12 months. There is no evidence of proposals submitted to justify the various scope extensions.” Wood’s new company, Trillian, thereafter assumed the contract after he parted ways with Regiments. “We determined that Transnet paid a total of approximately R3.1 billion to McKinsey, Trillian and Regiments. The said payments were made from the time McKinsey was appointed at Transnet in 2005 to 2017,” the report states.

I have attached Act 12 of 2004, and commend you to read the definition for ‘Gratification’. It states, amongst other things: (g) any other service or favour or advantage of any description, …..Overseas trips are definitely INCLUDED in this description.

Surely you must know, that there is a big difference to convening a meeting at your own office and putting on coffee and a few snacks than flying someone twice on 20,000 km round trips and putting them up at luxury hotels. At last check, The Langham in London averages about ZAR10,000 per night, including breakfast. At a guess, I estimate you have spent between ZAR300k and ZAR400k on such ‘gratification’ of Singh.

This leaves me (and the rest of South Africa and the world) a few questions:

1.       When you told us on 01 May 2018 and again on 09 July 2018, that you could find no wrongdoing by your staff, who was looking? And had they been trained by your stablemates, Hogan Lovells?
2.       Why did you deliberately omit to tell us all that you had bribed Anoj Singh with lavish overseas trips?
3.       Who else did you bribe in South Africa, in order to ‘win’ so much business from state owned companies?
4.       Why did you NOT come clean yet, as you have been repeatedly required to do, preferring instead to act like a kind of double agent, fighting off the authorities on the one hand, whilst telling a public meeting that you could find no wrongdoing on the part of your people?
5.       Will you prepared to publish the full cost of the expenses you incurred for the trips for Mr Singh, including hotels, travel, S & T’s visa costs and so on, or are you planning to continue being opaque?
6.       Did Singh’s wife or any other person accompany him on these trips?
7.       Are you saying that for your global CFO’s conference you BRIBE each and every CFO of each and every company / government agency you ‘consult’ for? If the answer is yes, then it means your global business is founded on corrupt practices, and needs to be shut down immediately. In any event, I am meeting with the Serious Fraud Office in London the week after next, and I shall be taking your wholesale bribery in breach of Section 6 of the Bribery Act up with them. A copy of the UK’s Bribery Act 2010 is attached and I commend Section 6 to you:

6 Bribery of foreign public officials (1) A person (“P”) who bribes a foreign public official (“F”) is guilty of an offence if P’s intention is to influence F in F’s capacity as a foreign public official. (2) P must also intend to obtain or retain— (a) business, or (b) an advantage in the conduct of business. (3) P bribes F if, and only if— (a) directly or through a third party, P offers, promises or gives any financial or other advantage— (i) to F, or (ii) to another person at F’s request or with F’s assent or acquiescence, and (b) F is neither permitted nor required by the written law applicable to F to be influenced in F’s capacity as a foreign public official by the offer, promise or gift.

8.  From the above it is clear that in return for the lavish trips you covered for Anoj Singh, he not only opened doors for you, he closed doors for Nedbank, of which I am a shareholder. He did this so that he could push cash the way of his Zuptoid friends through Regiments and Trillian, a sleight of hand that your firm was well aware of. Do you therefore agree that you are not only liable for the ill-gotten gains received by McKinsey, but are also liable for the monies stolen by Regiments and Trillian, which means you should have paid back R3.1bn?

Whether you agree or not, I and many fellow South Africans are now calling on you to PAY BACK THE MONEY. Not some of it, ALL of it.

As I said to you at our meeting at your office building Sandton on 01 May 2018, (the building you share with another beneficiary of South African public funds – Hogan Lovells) if you want to step over a line in the sand and prove that you will become part of the solution, instead of remaining part of the problem, you MUST COME CLEAN.

You haven’t come clean, quite the opposite, you have continued to conceal your role in bribery and corruption. That concealment amounts to a criminal offence.

Unless you come clean now, and stop playing this double game you are playing, I will take steps against you for publishing the fraudulent report stating that you could find no wrongdoing on the part of your staff. Whomever prepared that document for Kevin Sneader, could be charged for acting with a common purpose of deception. I imagine the global partner of McKinsey would not like to be a fraud suspect, so I am giving you some time to re-think your arrogant attitudes and your visible disdain for the public of this country. You have until my meeting with the UK’s SFO the week after next. If I do not hear from you, I will shut-down communications with you and do what has to be done. I will give no ground.

I shall be in London at the end of next week and welcome the chance to meet with Kevin in person, to see if McKinsey can be persuaded to do the morally right thing, or face the music for your fraudulent cover-up.

In the meantime, I am taking steps to arrange to have your London office picketed by loyal South Africans abroad who are gatvol of seeing their country being bled dry by companies like McKinsey, Hogan Lovells, SAP, ENS Africa and KPMG. You won’t be the only UK office to be picketed, we are going for your stablemates as well. Jermyn Street and High Holborn are within an easy journey of each other.

Unlike a good bottle of Claret, these type of things do NOT get better the longer you leave them on the shelf. The dwindling spiral of Bell Pottinger, KPMG, SAP, Hogan Lovells is very self-destructive. You surely must know that if you do the right thing, there may be a future for McKinsey on this planet, but if you do the wrong thing, as you have been doing, the end is nigh.

It was the unlawful protection of the corrupt clients of McKinsey’s that led to the corrupt clients of Hogan Lovells, to drag me and my two small children off a London bound plane two and a half years ago, incarcerate and torture me, and charge me on trumped up charges, to stop me from exposing the corruption of all of you. If McKinsey’s had not paved the way for the Zuptoids to enrich themselves, and Hogan Lovells had not of kept criminals running the DPCI/Hawks, then I would not have been arrested for exposing the Zuptoids. You and Hogan Lovells, like ENSAfrica, all had a role in my arrest and torture, whether unwittingly or not. We Irish, we have a long memory.

Mckinsey, Hogan Lovells and ENSAfrica are top of my list of corrupt firms to deal with. I’m sure you can understand why.

On behalf of all South Africans, OUR RIGHTS ARE RESERVED!

Best wishes

Paul