The Editor's Desk: KPMG and VBS - another day, another scandal

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 Felicity Duncan talk about KPMG's role in the VBS heist. They discuss the lessons that the seeming failure of Saudi Arabia's investment push has for South Africa and they reflect on the upcoming Uber IPO.