I wrote about the confusion surrounding "clean audits" in government audits (see here ). The public believe accountants and auditors are above reproach. They aren't. Like lawyers and doctors, they too have questionable and unethical practises. Commentators used the collapse of Steinhoff and its founder and CEO Markus Jooste's disgrace and suicide as a lesson on the dangers of fraud and corruption. He was described as a financial genius who built Steinhoff from nothing but then defrauded investors. He hid the Ponzi scheme - that the enterprise was built on sand - from them and auditors in South Africa and abroad for so long. But how indeed did he evade scrutiny? Jooste was a chartered accountant and knew the tricks of the trade. He did not personally prepare the accounting records and statements so others, especially senior management and auditors, must have known about irregularities but chose to remain quiet or not probe too deeply. The auditor's motto is to exp...