Statement from John Veihmeyer, Chairman KPMG International

LONDON, Sept. 19, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- I sincerely apologise for what went wrong in KPMG South Africa. This is not who we are.

KPMG International undertook an investigation, with the help of independent legal advisers, which found a number of failings in a report prepared for the South African Revenue Service (SARS) and in the decisions made, over time, to continue working for the Guptas. KPMG South Africa made serious mistakes and errors of judgement in these engagements.

As a first step, significant actions were taken last Friday including the appointment of Nhlamu Dlomu as the new CEO of KPMG South Africa. She immediately issued an apology to the country. Nhlamu represents the best of KPMG, and has proven to be a strong and effective leader. 

Other actions included the announcement of significant governance reforms and 8 partners leaving the firm. Further appropriate steps will be taken if any new information comes to light.

The work on these specific engagements is not reflective of the quality of KPMG's work in South Africa over many years, or indeed the work we do for clients globally.

We are determined to learn from the failings that we have found in these specific client activities. In particular, we will further strengthen the monitoring of which clients we choose to work with and how we handle potentially sensitive client engagements.

The public, our clients and our 200,000 people across the globe rightly expect us to demonstrate that we consistently hold ourselves to the highest standards.

We are committed to making sure this happens.

John Veihmeyer

Chairman, KPMG International

For further information - Brian Bannister, KPMG International, Brian.Bannister@kpmg.co.uk, +44 79 19 393 753