Kgosana: I'm not friends with the Guptas

Former KPMG chief executive, Moses Kgosana, said stepping down from the Alexander Forbes position he was to occupy next month should not be seen as an admission of guilt. Picture: Twitter

Former KPMG chief executive, Moses Kgosana, said stepping down from the Alexander Forbes position he was to occupy next month should not be seen as an admission of guilt. Picture: Twitter

Published Jul 4, 2017

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Johannesburg - "I'm not friends with the Guptas, I was not friends with the Guptas. I've never even talked to them since then. It was a professional relationship." 

There were the words of former KPMG chief executive Moses Kgosana, distancing himself from allegations that he was enjoying a cosy relationship with the Guptas after an email written to Atul Gupta came to light. Kgosana had written that email after attending the 2013 lavish Gupta wedding at Sun City when he was still with KPMG. 

Speaking to Xolani Gwala on Radio 702 on Tuesday morning, Kgosana said that email was authentic. He said he wrote every word on it but that it did not mean that he had a cosy relationship with the Guptas and may have in turn compromised KPMG's independence which audited some of the Gupta companies.

"As a CEO of an auditing firm one of your roles [is that] you have a relationship with all your clients. It could not be all of them but top 20 clients that you have that relationship with. I received an invitation together with my colleagues to attended the wedding. I accepted, I attended it.

"Writing to them in that way...it could have been an email that I sent to the CEO of Standard Bank, the CEO of Nedbank whatever...for me there's nothing wrong with that. It's a professional relationship and that's all it was."

Kgosana also reiterated that he had paid out of his own pocked to go to the wedding because KPMG did not want it's independence to be compromised.

Kgosana was due to be appointed chairperson of Alexander Forbes board next month but told Gwala that he chose to "step down" from that role because the publicity and controversy surrounding the email was not fair on his prospective employers.

He said he was not pushed nor forced to resign.

"I stepped down from Alexander Forbes. I'm the one who resigned; I wasn't pushed.  The reason why I did that was because Alexander Forbes was the one who recently gave me an opportunity to chair their board, the opportunity I respected highly. I was looking forward to that but because of this media publicity there were already public opinion that was attacking Alexander Forbes that 'you have given a corrupt person a chairmanship role' and thought it was actually unfair to Alexander Forbes, their staff, their clients and their investors.

"So I needed to just step out of that role so that the focus must not be on Alexander Forbes [and] I can have an opportunity to clear my name.

"My resignation is not an admittance of wrongdoing. I don't admit I did anything wrong and I stand by those things. I'm the one who told them I will resign from this role so that Alexander Forbes cannot be attached to that.

While Kgosana was was adamant that he was not asked to leave and did so out of his own violation, he also said Alexander Forbes did not ask him not to step down and just accepted his leaving as a good gesture.

Asked about how he intended to clear his name, Kgosana said there was not much he could do but answer all questions as authentically as possible.

"I have done nothing wrong, I did say what I said and I stand by that."

The Star

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