Former Steinhoff Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Markus Jooste will be subpoenaed to appear before Parliament. His appearance comes after the retail giant was plunged into crisis at the end of last year, after auditors refused to sign off financials as a result of accounting irregularities.
Jooste resigned and the share price plunged.
He declined an invitation to appear before Parliament on Wednesday, arguing this could jeopardise his defence in pending criminal charges. He has gone to ground using lawyers to evade auditors and now Parliament.
Jooste has argued he is no longer at Steinhoff and fears incriminating himself in upcoming criminal proceedings.
However, Parliamentarians are having none of it. Finance Committee Chairperson Yunus Carrim says they do not accept his reasoning of staying away.
“We will in fact subpoena Mr Markus Jooste. We do not accept his argument that there’s no point in him appearing before our committees because he’s not with Steinhoff anymore. In fact it’s precisely because Steinhoff shares collapsed under his watch as it were.”
The Steinhoff share plummeted by over a R100 billion when Jooste resigned in December. This is on the back of fraud allegations in accounting practices.
Auditors, who are trying to piece together the puzzle, have been left in the lurch. However the stay-away from Jooste has not helped. “We did extend an invitation to Mr Jooste to actually talk to us. It didn’t happen. There were conditions attached to that which were unacceptable to us so we haven’t seen Mr Jooste,” explained PriceWaterhouseCoopers Louis Strydom.
The PriceWaterhouseCoopers investigation is expected to be completed by the end of the year.
The policing unit, the Hawks, wants Steinhoff to cooperate with criminal investigations. Serious Commercial Crimes Head of Hawks Major General Alfred Khana says Parliament is being misled.
“I think the house may be under the impression that Steinhoff has reported a case to the Hawks. To make it utterly clear, Steinhoff did not report a case to Hawks. Steinhoff gave us a report, a section 34 reported empty report.”
Steinhoff Attorney Robert Driman says, “There’s no open and shut case to be handed over to the Hawks to say prosecute that. This is an evolving investigation.”
Meanwhile the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission wants bonuses to Steinhoff executives repaid by the end of June as they were based on falsified profits. The Independent Regulatory Board of Auditors says it has now widened its probe into Steinhoff’s auditors Deloitte.
The Deloitte probe will now go back to 2012, instead of 2014.
Steinhoff’s former CFO Ben Le Grange will also not be spared interrogation. The committee has given him ten days to confirm whether he will accept an invitation to attend the next meeting, failing which, he will also be subpoenaed to appear before Parliament.
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