The docuseries makes us marvel what number of Joostes are nonetheless on the market cooking the books.
Once I first learn Rob Rose’s bombshell e book Steinheist in 2018, I needed to choose my jaw up off the ground just a few instances. The dreadful revelations of blatant company corruption are much more astonishing when considered on display.
Carrying the identical title because the e book, the Showmax authentic docuseries Steinheist explores South Africa’s greatest company fraud, involving retail large Steinhoff.
It’s a narrative harking back to a Hollywood blockbuster, crammed with fraudulent accounting, quick dwelling, race horses, a mistress and a cabal of oligarchs — the Stellenbosch mafia. In actual life, former Steinhoff CEO Markus Jooste performed the lead, with an award-winning efficiency of denial and deflection.
The primary instalment of Steinheist left many viewers in shock and disbelief. The three episodes aired in 2022 give context to the genesis of the “accounting irregularities” which led to R1.4 billion of Jooste’s belongings being frozen by the Reserve Financial institution.
This was adopted by a 20-year ban and a R15 million fantastic from the JSE; his report R475 million fantastic from The Monetary Sector Conduct Authority; his police summons to face trial and the seizure of R60 million of belongings from Berdine Odendaal, his alleged mistress.
Documentary director Richard Finn Gregory, who received the Sanlam Group Monetary Journalist of the 12 months award for 2022 with producer Elle Oosthuizen for the primary instalment of Steinheist — remains to be behind the lens of the 2 new episodes just lately added to the Showmax platform. Episodes 4 and 5 go even deeper into unpacking the largest company rip-off in South African historical past and the way the web tightened round Jooste within the build-up to his suicide on 21 March 2024.
Broad voices on a company scandal
Having directed School Ties and consulted on The Station Strangler and Rosemary’s Hitlist, Gregory brings a broad vary of voices into the dialog, from monetary journalists and analysts to exes and even a psychologist. Key voices, comparable to Lesetja Kganyago, governor of the Reserve Financial institution, and funding officer Zwelakhe Mnguni, who was the primary to boost considerations about Steinhoff, add extra texture to the docuseries.
“Placing a number of voices collectively in order that they complement one another is difficult however nothing new. It’s simply the character of this type of documentary filmmaking,” Gregory tells me.
Visually documenting a company scandal layered in monetary jargon and turning it right into a palatable challenge for audiences was, nevertheless, a slight impediment for a director missing in-depth monetary data. Gregory says he was conscious of this daunting process and was open to being educated.
“I’ve learnt that being ignorant isn’t one thing to be fearful of as a result of you’ll be able to at all times treatment it. I simply saved asking questions of the individuals who actually know their stuff, getting them to interrupt it down for me within the easiest phrases attainable, till I lastly grasped what they had been speaking about.”
He provides that they needed to recreate a few of the steps that they wanted to undergo to know complicated monetary issues “and tried to bundle it in a manner that may circulate logically for an viewers”.
The psychology of white-collar crimes
A few of the greatest enterprise fraud circumstances worldwide have concerned unethical leaders comparable to former Audi CEO Martin Winterkorn, who was concerned in 2015’s Volkswagen Dieselgate; Jordan Belfort whose story was captured in 2013’s The Wolf of Wall Avenue and Kenneth Lay of the Enron scandal within the early 2000s.
Beside these being tantalising subjects for company governance practitioners, additionally they intrigue psychology practitioners who’re wanting to study the the reason why company leaders commit white-collar crimes. Steinheist contains views from forensic psychologist Dr Giada del Fabbro, who offers perception into Jooste’s persona and motivations.
Gregory didn’t simply wish to take a look at how a lot cash was embezzled within the Steinhoff saga however needed to spotlight the psychological processes of such corrupt people.
“Some persons are glad to have sufficient to eat decently, whereas others are fixated on accumulating cash to a level that they and their youngsters would by no means be capable of spend of their lifetimes. Which implies rationality has gone out the window and we’re speaking about issues like standing obsession, insecurity, delight, dominance and concern.
“It’s psychological stuff and, if we’re not digging round in that space, we’re solely telling a part of the story.”
The pursuit for justice and moral management
One other a part of the story is the query of accountability and prosecution. Gregory, together with true-crime movie pioneers IdeaCandy, began filming the brand new episodes in mid-2023 when a few of the highest executives at Steinhoff began seeing the within of jail cells. This was what most individuals — together with buyers and peculiar individuals who misplaced their pension funds — had been calling for for the reason that scandal got here to gentle in 2017.
Thus, the newest two episodes try to offer audiences a way of readability and closure. They discover the continuing efforts to recuperate the cash and convey Jooste’s accomplices to justice. These included insider-trading prosecutions in South Africa and fraud convictions in Germany, in addition to the arrest of former Steinhoff govt Stéhan Grobler, and the sentencing and plea deal of Ben la Grange, Steinhoff’s former chief monetary officer.
Regardless of feeling just like the case was in limbo with none decision for some time, Gregory is inspired by the high-quality investigation behind the scenes through the years. These thought-about efforts converse to the moral management inside our nation’s establishments. Gregory argues that, from the skin, for probably the most half, our impressions of the general public sector are fashioned by interactions with low-level clerks and politician’s rhetoric on podiums.
“However, whereas just a few years in the past I may need thought there was no manner our establishments have the flexibility to crack down on monetary crime, I’ve now realised that there are literally some extraordinarily competent individuals working behind the scenes.
“There are people who find themselves really superb at their jobs, working as arduous as they will to get on high of the corruption within the nation.”
In a rustic crammed with express corruption and ethical chapter, each within the non-public and public sector, I ask Gregory whether or not our hopes are maybe short-lived. He emphasises that, so long as these hard-working, moral women and men keep at their posts, we do have hope of issues bettering, of decreasing corruption, of closing the loopholes and rising the worldwide belief in our establishments’ skill to do their jobs correctly.
“And, if these guardrails are in place, it ought to assist forestall company and governmental management from being tempted to place their palms within the until.”
At a time after we thought we had seen all of it as a nation with the likes of former president Jacob Zuma, the Guptas and state seize, the Steinhoff scandal provides us so much to ponder relating to corruption. Steinheist is a stark reminder that even these in tailor-made fits can have sinister intentions to defraud stakeholders for their very own achieve.
Gregory and his staff seize South Africa’s largest accounting scandal with the utmost proficiency. Steinheist broadens individuals’s fascinated with corruption in South Africa and celebrates these dedicated to rooting it out for the betterment of society.
The docuseries additionally makes us marvel what number of Joostes are nonetheless on the market cooking the books and stealing the hard-earned cash of peculiar South Africans attempting to feed their households.