Senior Partner and CEO at KPMG South Africa, Ignatius Sehoole, has encouraged companies to dismiss employees who engage in extramarital affairs, citing them as untrustworthy.
Sehoole made this statement at the Eswatini Institute of Accountants (ESIA)’ Ethics Seminar held at Happy Valley Hotel today, emphasizing that personal ethics directly impact professional integrity.
He highlighted KPMG South Africa’s turnaround after addressing corruption within the organization and stressed that unethical conduct, even outside of work, can damage a company’s reputation.
“KPMG South Africa has turned around. Just a few years ago, the organization almost got shut down due to unethical practices by a few corrupt accountants. In accounting, you cannot be unethical, as this profession places a high demand on ethics. Corruption cannot be tolerated in an accountant’s life. We turned KPMG around after we started to investigate ourselves,” he said.
He further shared an incident from his own experience in senior management: “I am in senior management, and one day I was approached by my colleague’s wife, who came to the office to report that her husband was having an affair. This, of course, brought this employee’s ethics into question because I asked myself, how can we work with an individual who is only ethical at work but not ethical at home? This colleague was living a double life, and we could not accept it, so we had to part ways as he was unethical.”
Sehoole emphasized KPMG South Africa’s stance on ethics, stating that employees can be dismissed for engaging in extramarital affairs, even if the relationships occur outside the workplace.
“There is no such thing as a separation of professional life and private life. Both lives are lived by one individual, meaning whatever you do outside of work will eventually affect your work. I encourage companies to dismiss employees who have extramarital affairs, as these employees are not trustworthy. This means you are not trustworthy at work because you have corruption inside you, and you are bringing your organization’s name into disrepute by your actions outside of the workplace. So, companies should dismiss such people to ensure the company can prosper without corruption,” concluded.