Johannesburg - South Africa's Oakbay Resources on Thursday appointed a local auditing firm after the local unit of KPMG ditched the company over allegations that its owners, the Gupta family, are wielding undue political influence.
This is according to Reuters, which is reporting that Oakbay Resources said SizweNtsalubaGobodo, South Africa's biggest black-owned auditing firm, had been appointed with immediate effect.
The appointment comes after KPMG ceased auditing Oakbay Resources & Energy and other Gupta-controlled businesses, ending a 15-year relationship earlier this month. This was according to Oakbay Investments, a holding company that controls Oakbay Resources.
Sasfin Holdings has ceased being Oakbay’s broker, while Barclays Africa’s Absa unit and FirstRand’s First National Bank, or FNB, have stopped providing banking services, it said.
This week, workers at Oakbay Investments appealed to South African banks to restore relations with their company, saying their livelihoods were at stake.
Read also: Oakbay workers issue appeal to banks
“If by the end of May the accounts remain closed, Oakbay's businesses will close. That means that thousands of us will be without a job,” their representatives said in an open letter to banks.
Oakbay has said it employs 7 500 employees.
Read also: Gupta claims rubbished by Africa Check
President Jacob Zuma’s close friendship with the Gupta family has been in the spotlight recently.
Bloomberg has reported that questions over the Gupta’s hold over the president mounted after senior ANC officials last month stepped forward with allegations that the wealthy Indian family offered them cabinet posts in exchange for business concessions, spurring the probe by the governing party and another by the Public Protector, the graft ombudsman. The Guptas deny any wrongdoing.
Read also: Bank refuses to meet with Oakbay
The family, who moved to South Africa in the early 1990s, is in business with Zuma’s son, Duduzane. He has a stake in a Gupta-owned company that’s seeking to buy Optimum Coal Mine, which had been placed into bankruptcy protection by Glencore.
The transaction has come under criticism because Mines Minister Mosebenzi Zwane met with Glencore Chief Executive Officer Ivan Glasenberg in Switzerland to advance the deal. The minister denied giving the Guptas and Zuma any preferential treatment, saying he was only trying to preserve jobs, the wire service reported.
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