The Council of the University of Witwatersrand has decided not to renew their internal auditing and risk management contracts with KPMG once they have lapsed at the end of the 2017 financial year.
The council reached its decision during their meeting on September 29 2017 following a meeting with the current chief executive of KPMG, executive members and other representatives. Wits University has resolved to cut ties with KPMG following the firm being embroiled in corruption scandals involving Sars and Gupta associated companies.
In a statement released on Tuesday, the university says that “members of the Council Audit and Council Risk committees deliberated long and hard on the presentations made by KPMG.”
“The committees acknowledged that KPMG did take some actions, including releasing the CEO, COO and a number of senior partners to mitigate the reputational damage that it suffered as a result of its relationship with Gupta associated companies and its complicity in the SARS report but felt that KPMG had not gone far enough.”
The statement goes on to say that, “the Council believes that it would have been prudent to acknowledge the ethical and legal lapses of KPMG’s senior management team.”
PWC will remain the University’s external auditors.
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