I have a confession - it looks like I’ve been captured. No, it wasn’t one of those premeditated acts in which I sold my soul to the highest bidder. It seems I just got captured unwittingly.
Remember the lavish R30 million Gupta family wedding at Sun City in 2013 that became such a spectacular scandal? That’s when it all started.
It turns out, four years later, the DA is laying charges against the Guptas for allegedly using public funds to pay for the bash. The party is claiming public funds meant to assist the poor were allegedly “washed through a complex web of front companies” and used to pay for the wedding.
Investigative journalists probing the leaked Gupta emails say KPMG was complicit in allowing a situation in which taxpayers had to foot
the bill.
KPMG insisted it always acted with integrity in dealings with the Guptas, but if it’s true that some of my own hard-earned taxes went towards paying for the lavish wedding, I'm gutted.
In other words, I've been captured by the Guptas.
I had a restless night trying to imagine what I would have paid for to make the wedding such a glittering success.
Did my taxes perhaps go towards sponsoring a free return trip from Mumbai to Waterkloof for some lucky guest? Bribing someone at the Waterkloof key point so that the wedding plane could land there? Or did I just cover the cost of the bhurfi and jelebee for the desert course or even pay for the bride’s mangal sutra (a necklace the groom ties around the bride’s neck)?
It turns out I’m not the only one smarting from this embarrassing imbroglio. KPMG can hardly be amused with a WhatsApp posting doing the rounds. I saw one last week that featured what looked like the company’s logo, underlined with the words “Auditors/Accountants/Wedding Planners”.
Nor has this been a pleasant time for former KPMG Africa chief executive Moses Kgosana, who resigned because he believed it was “the correct course of action for himself, the company, its clients and shareholders”.
Gee, Mr Kgosana and KPMG, I feel for you. But spare a thought for poor me and other taxpayers who will have to live with this shame.
Any chance of a tax rebate?