Zondo report: Auditors have to answer for 'schoolboy errors' that 'enabled' state capture

"Schoolboy errors" - that's how Simon Mantell, owner of biscuit supplier Mantelli's, who raised the flag on tender irregularities at SAA - described PwC's work in the five years that it audited the national carrier.

For years, PwC dismissed Mantell's complaints to the Independent Regulatory Board for Auditors (IRBA) as "spurious allegations" from a sore loser. It said Mantell was "abusing" the IRBA complaints processes for purposes that fell out of the auditing watchdog's scope.

Fast forward to five years since Mantell first reported PwC to the IRBA, and the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into State Capture report has detailed numerous failures in the auditing firm's work at SAA.