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McKinsey & Co will reimburse R650 million ($ 44 million) for contracts it had with South African Airways and state logistics company Transnet SOC Ltd, as it seeks to clear its name in the country.
The consultancy’s chief risk officer, Jean-Christophe Mieszala, will testify Thursday in a state corruption investigation. McKinsey said the contracts were carried out in conjunction with Regiments Capital, a company associated with the Gupta family, some of which have refused to return to South Africa from Dubai to face corruption charges.
“The judicial commission has confirmed that there is no information implicating current McKinsey staff in any corruption or wrongdoing,” the company said in a statement Wednesday.
“The reimbursement decision was made after the recent submission of documents and information by the Judicial Commission on the Regiments that were previously not available for our review.”
McKinsey is one of the international companies caught up in corruption investigations in South Africa, mainly targeting companies doing business with state entities. SAP AG and KPMG LLP are two of the mentioned companies.
“The Commission commends McKinsey for taking the step he has taken,” it said in a separate statement. “The Commission urges other companies to follow suit and do the same in all cases where the evidence shows that they have profited from contracts tainted by corruption, even if they were not part of that corruption.”
Of the 10 contracts affected, nine were with Transnet and one with SAA. Transnet plans to get more than R1.2 billion from McKinsey, including interest payments, it said, according to News24, an Internet news site.
McKinsey has previously reimbursed around R 1 billion to Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd, the state power company.
“This situation is a source of great regret for McKinsey,” said Kevin Sneader, McKinsey’s global managing partner, in the statement. “For the past three years, McKinsey has accepted responsibility for the errors in judgment that were made and continues to work hard to correct them.”
Read: Government in talks with Canadian firm on SAA – report
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