The Guptas' auditors, KPMG, have been publicly disgraced, but don't expect retribution from the Independent Regulatory Board for Auditors any time soon, says CEO Bernard Agulhas.
The board is investigating whether KPMG broke any rules when it failed to detect how R30-million of taxpayers' money ended up paying for a lavish Gupta wedding via the Gupta-owned company Linkway, which it audited.
Agulhas says the process of investigating and bringing corrupt audit firms to book is painfully slow and not in the interests of the public.
"The process needs to be streamlined," he says. "We're looking at how we can get to a decision much quicker."
But don't blame the board, he says. The lawyers employed by audit firms - and the bigger they are, such as KPMG, the more formidable their legal resources - seem to do everything they can to prevent a speedy resolution.
"It's not our process that is slowing this down, it's engaging with the auditors and more so with their lawyers. This makes the process extremely difficult when, in fact, it doesn't have to be so. We could probably finalise the investigation a lot sooner if there were no lawyers.
"But the last thing we want is to get to a disciplinary hearing and then be told we didn't give the audit firm a fair opportunity to put their case forward."
The regulatory board's investigation into whether Deloitte - like KPMG a big-four audit firm - failed in its duties prior to the collapse of African Bank Investments Limited in 2014 is still trundling along.
"And again," says Agulhas, "it's been to and fro from ourselves to their lawyers, from their lawyers back to us.
"We've presented them with a charge sheet of alleged transgressions and they have responded. Just to get to that point has taken two years. We now have to consider their responses and take it to the next level."
He can't say how much longer it will be before anything comes of it. And even then, don't hold your breath.
"If there is a negative finding against the auditor, we expect that they will take it on review," he says.
The public, stakeholders and investors have an interest in knowing if the auditors employed by "their" company can be relied on. Their interests are not served by investigations that last for years, he says.
"If an investigation goes on much longer than it should, then the public remains exposed to that auditor.
"So it is in the best interests of the public if we can get these cases out of the way a lot quicker.
"If the public needs to beware of an auditor and know they cannot be relied on, then we need to get that message out a lot quicker than we're doing at the moment."
Changes to the law are being looked at, he says.
"It's important that we revisit the process because we're getting so many high-profile cases where the public is exposed.
"We need to get to a conclusion in our investigations a lot quicker."
The board is currently investigating between 80 and 100 cases, he says. Around half involve the big-four audit firms.
It has a business intelligence section that monitors clients and audit firms and gathers information to see where there could be risks of an audit or business failure. It then inspects those particular auditors.
Its 2016 report shows that three out of 20 firms inspected and 33 out of 275 audit partners were referred to the board's investigations committee for incorrect audit opinions and breaches of independence.
Agulhas says the number of firms and auditors referred to its investigations committee this year will be higher than the international average.
"We used to be on par with international trends but we predict that this year we're going to be higher than the international trend."
This is in spite of the fact that according to World Economic Forum rankings, South Africa's auditing and reporting standards are the best in the world.
However, the No1 ranking is not just about the quality of audits and auditors, but the inspection and investigations process, he says.
The ranking is a measure of how "robust" this process is, even if it does take forever.
The number of high-profile cases under investigation has increased because there's been a lot more awareness from the public, stakeholders, investors and shareholders about their rights and the role of the auditor, but also because there is more corruption, he says.
"Awareness has increased about the need for auditor independence."
Nothing has done more to raise awareness around this than the KPMG/Gupta case, he says.
It has also considerably bolstered his argument for mandatory rotation of auditors, which he believes is the best guarantee of independence.
He makes the point that KPMG has been Linkway's auditor for 15 years.
"We believe that if auditors are connected to the same client for too long then there will be relationships that become too cosy, and auditors might become too familiar with their clients. They drop their guard and don't perform the audit with the amount of scepticism that we expect from them."
The line that should exist between auditors and the company they're auditing becomes more blurred the longer the relationship.
The KPMG case illustrates how easily this can happen, and with what negative consequences.
"It is not in the best interests of the public if auditors start to attend the weddings of their clients," says Agulhas.
The regulatory board has ruled that there be mandatory rotation of auditors every 10 years, from 2023.
KPMG has vociferously opposed this, as have other big-four firms and their long-standing clients.
There'd be fewer breaches of independence and no need for enforced rotation if the regulatory body performed its oversight role properly, they say.
The problem is a lack of compliance from the audit firms, retorts Agulhas.
The board can only investigate breaches of independence after they have occurred, he says.
He needs to end cosy auditor-client relationships before the wedding invitations are sent out. And accepted.
