🔒 WORLDVIEW: Bell Pottinger first of many – looking away no defence

I’m from a school which believes in experimenting, but not so much to stop repeating special discoveries. Like steaks at The Grill House in Rosebank. And sayings such as “Hope springs” or “If you thought education was expensive, try ignorance.”

My favourite saying during South Africa’s period of great tension is from Irish philosopher Edmund Burke who told us “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” What he might have added was when good men (and women) do something, the impossible often happens. And we’re living it right now.

London Social A List member James Henderson, owner and CEO of London communications consultancy Bell Pottinger, is the latest on the side of evil to capitulate. After steadfastly defending the Gupta family, his £100,000 a month clients, Henderson has become another former ally who claims he was played. His “full, unequivocal, absolute” apology issued yesterday takes grovelling to a subterranean level.
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Will this mea culpa save Henderson’s career or, indeed, his firm? Perhaps, but the odds are against it. A reputation takes years to build and can be destroyed in an instant. And losing it when you claim to be an expert in the field kinda extinguishes one’s marketing mojo.

By most accounts Henderson is a likeable character. Indeed, Sol Kerzner’s ex-wife Heather (47), to whom he is betrothed, holds him in high regard, as did bosses of Richemont and Investec who were clients before the Guptas arrived. Rather than being evil, the Bell Pottinger chief may well only be guilty of looking the other way while his underlings perpetrated nefarious deeds for which they have been fired (and he is now apologising).

Similar sins of omission might also be behind the scandal that hit KPMG where its once highly rated CEO Moses Kgosana was quite clearly far too chummy with the Guptas. But its case is even tougher to argue. KPMG’s stock in trade is auditing. If the rest of the world could see through the Oakbay veil, how come this bunch of experts didn’t?

My experience suggests much of the fault lies in ignoring Burke’s warning. In the real world, the actual wrongdoing is usually perpetrated by salary slaves following instructions from above. Those giving the orders often get away with a Pontius Pilate approach of looking elsewhere and washing their hands should anything nasty surface.

You have to wonder, for instance, how SA executives at McKinsey expect to get away with their oversight of allowing 30% of their Eskom fee to be channelled to a Gupta front company it was ordered to use as a “BEE partner”. Insisting that Eskom pay Trillian direct doesn’t cut any mustard with rational beings. Ditto SAP, another multinational exposed as having swum naked while Guptas and cohorts milked SA’s State Owned Enterprises.

While this industrial scale looting was being perpetrated, only those companies guided by individuals with a strong set of values were capable of not standing aside. It is easy to forget that at this time the ANC was apparently destined to rule SA forever. It made the rules and they included instructions on which ”BEE body” would be given the slice of State contracts.

Those which companies wanted to do business in the country followed the Gupta way or took the highway. Like Bell Pottinger, their day is rapidly approaching. SA’s Brazil moment has arrived. We’ve only witnessed the end of the beginning. Now it gets interesting.