Budget Speech 2018

Madam Speaker,

Government notes recent exposure of fraudulent accounting practices involving Steinhoff, resulting in large losses for many retirement and institutional funds.

Government regulators, namely, the Financial Services Board, Independent Regulatory Board of Auditor and other regulators have initiated investigations which are currently in progress and are working with overseas regulators to ensure that those at fault are made to account for their crimes.

As President Ramaphosa said during the SONA,

“We must fight corruption, fraud and collusion in the private sector with the same purpose and intensity.”

It is vital that we subject corporate corruption to the same amount of scrutiny and ensure, among others, that we implement the IRBA recommendations on Mandatory Audit Firm Rotation (MAFR) in order to ensure the rigor of the audit process and independence of Audit Committees and Firms.