Thomas Johnson - The Blog

"Sygnia CEO Magda Wierzycka fired auditor KPMG in 2017 for its role in state capture. This earned her almost heroine-like status among some in the business community for taking a strong and courageous stand against corruption. Now the same board has fired Deloitte, arguing that engagement with the firm is ‘unsatisfactory’ and there is reputational risk associated with it. It is hard not to believe this is the case. Except that something just doesn’t feel right." ( Deloitte firing may reveal more than Sygnia would like , Daily Maverick 14/06/2019.) Is Sasha Planting, author of the piece, an accountant? She wrote: "Bear in mind an auditor’s job is not to detect fraud, comment on a business’s model or even its viability. It is simply to provide a reasonable assurance that the financial statements are accurate. In order to do this, it has to trust that the information on which the accounts are based (contracts, leases, stock take reports and so on), and which is provid...

This is the adapted text of an email I wrote Western Cape (WC) Premier Alan Winde and MEC for agriculture Ivan Meyer today: I've been following the WC's government's statements and reaction to the murder of farmer Stefan Smit. While this like any other particularly violent crime is tragic, the media's and WC government's reaction is excessive considering in 2017/18 20 336 people were murdered in the country with Nyanga police station's area having the highest of all stations (see here ). Of total murders, 2 930 were women and 985 were children , with 370 women and 279 children in the Western Cape ( here ). How many farmers were killed in the province? According to AfriForum , there were "17 farm attacks" to May 2019. I don't know if that includes murder. But does murder of the most vulnerable members of the community  –   children  –  get the kind of attention farmers do? Is the DA, WC government, media, AfriForum, white right-wing, etc go...