Johan van Loggerenberg, the former SARS official who was a member of the controversial SARS investigation unit, on Wednesday lambasted KPMG over its failure to withdraw its report into the unit in its entirety, which he said in a lawyer’s letter it was obliged to do as it had contravened professional codes.
While KPMG earlier this week met former finance minister Pravin Gordhan along with former SARS employees Adrian Lackay, Pete Richer, Ivan Pillay and Yolisa Pikie it has declined a request from Van Loggerenberg for a meeting.
The SARS officials who met with KPMG all lost their jobs in events connected to the scandal related to the unit.
In the statement, Van Loggerenberg’s lawyer Brett Murison said while Van Loggerenberg had noted the meetings KPMG had had with Gordhan‚ Jonas‚ Pikie‚ Lackay and Richer‚ he had been unable to arrange a meeting with them despite requests for a “meaningful” engagement.
“Our client has found them to be unresponsive and their communiqués (when they did bother to reply) to be dismissive‚ evasive‚ inadequate and displaying scant regard for the laws and rules of the audit profession,” said Murison.
“Our client believes the retraction by KPMG SA of the ‘summary‚ conclusions‚ findings and recommendations’ of their so-called ‘SARS report’‚ falls way short of the legal‚ moral and ethical obligations that rest on KPMG SA to correct the wrongs caused by the report.”
Murison added that while KPMG SA had always denied any flaw in their report‚ [Van Loggerenberg] considers the retraction as an unequivocal public admission that the report “omits material facts‚ including evidence of which resulted in the suppression of evidence of criminal offences‚ significant losses to the taxpayer‚ the manipulation of state officials and the orchestrated disruption of state agencies”.
Murison said the report demonstrated that KPMG SA did not uphold the fundamental obligatory principles of fairness and integrity during the entire process that led to the report’s compilation and publication. He said the report was materially questionable in law and accused its authors of breaching the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants’ (Saica) and the Independent Regulatory Board for Auditors’ (Irba) codes of conduct.
The letter ends with a statement from Murison to warn that his client is considering his action.
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