PriceWaterhouse Coopers are set to be the new external auditors of Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) Group, replacing audit firm KPMG East Africa whose contract has expired.
This item of appointing a new auditor, will be subject to ratification by shareholders during KCB’s 49th Annual General Meeting (AGM), to be held through a virtual platform, on Thursday, 4 June, 2020 at 10:00 a.m. This AGM will be streamed live via a link which shall be provided to all shareholders who will have registered to participate in the general meeting.
Trouble for accounting watchdog KPMG first begun in 2017 when its South African branch come under fire and suffered a severe reputational hit after becoming caught up in a growing corruption scandal surrounding one of the country’s most powerful families, the Guptas.
KPMG is accused of facilitating the Gupta family in tax evasion and corruption. Last year, KPMG agreed to pay $50 Million to settle claims that it went back to alter audits it had already completed, after using stolen data from a watchdog that revealed they were about to be inspected.
This financial scandal could have prompted UK-Based Barclays Bank of Kenya, now ABSA Bank, to replace KPMG as its external auditors after only two years on the lender’s audit watchdog. Barclays then appointed Ernst & Young (EY) as its firm’s new auditor.
The job description of an external auditor is to obtain reasonable assurance about whether financial statements are free from material misstatement, either due to fraud or error.
The UK’s Securities and Exchange Commission charged KPMG with changing past audit work ahead of inspections by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.
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