Newsdeck

Newsdeck

EOH Suspends Employees Implicated in Graft-Tainted Contracts

EOH Holdings Ltd. suspended some employees involved in deals being reviewed by its lawyers after an anonymous complaint prompted Microsoft Corp. to cancel a contract with the South African IT company.

“We have either suspended or received resignations from involved employees, resulting in none of the employees currently implicated remaining in the business,” EOH Chief Executive Officer Stephen van Coller said in a letter to staff. The CEO confirmed that he wrote the message.

EOH shares plunged after Microsoft ended its association with the company earlier this month. The Johannesburg-based firm has hired forensic accounting teams to investigate its public-sector contracts, and has identified fewer than six deemed necessary for detailed review, said Van Coller.

Read More: EOH CEO in Fight to Save Graft-Tainted South Africa IT Company

The stock pared gains to trade 0.3 percent lower as of 10 a.m. in Johannesburg. EOH has slumped 42 percent this year, the worst performer on the FTSE/JSE Africa All-Share Index.

Last week, the company launched a whistle-blower app Expose-It, to make the process of sharing sensitive information on the company safer and easier. “Several people have come forward to share knowledge on issues,” the CEO said. “In some cases, we have been given a lot of detail and on others, we have received indications of where we should look.”

Van Coller, a former executive of lender Absa Group Ltd. and wireless carrier MTN Group Ltd., was brought in by EOH last year partly to restore the company’s reputation and boost corporate governance. DM

Gallery

Please peer review 3 community comments before your comment can be posted

X

This article is free to read.

Sign up for free or sign in to continue reading.

Unlike our competitors, we don’t force you to pay to read the news but we do need your email address to make your experience better.


Nearly there! Create a password to finish signing up with us:

Please enter your password or get a sign in link if you’ve forgotten

Open Sesame! Thanks for signing up.

We would like our readers to start paying for Daily Maverick...

…but we are not going to force you to. Over 10 million users come to us each month for the news. We have not put it behind a paywall because the truth should not be a luxury.

Instead we ask our readers who can afford to contribute, even a small amount each month, to do so.

If you appreciate it and want to see us keep going then please consider contributing whatever you can.

Support Daily Maverick→
Payment options

Become a Maverick Insider

This could have been a paywall

On another site this would have been a paywall. Maverick Insider keeps our content free for all.

Become an Insider

Every seed of hope will one day sprout.

South African citizens throughout the country are standing up for our human rights. Stay informed, connected and inspired by our weekly FREE Maverick Citizen newsletter.