JOHANNESBURG, Monday 16 November 2020. – Henley Business School South Africa has expressed its deepest sympathies to the Makwetu family on the sudden passing of Kimi Makwetu, South Africa’s outgoing auditor-general.
Makwetu, 54, died on Wednesday 11 November 2020 after a long and valiant battle with lung cancer that he bore with incredible grace and dignity, said Henley Africa dean and director Jon Foster-Pedley.
“Like all other committed South Africans, Henley Africa will remember Kimi Makwetu as a beacon of hope; a brave gatekeeper of the highest moral resolve, during this country’s darkest days of state capture and one of the finest exemplars of what a public servant should be.”
Very few state institutions had emerged with their reputations unscathed during this period, Foster-Pedley said, but the reputation of the auditor-general’s office had instead been enhanced during Makwetu’s tenure, where he had worked tirelessly to ensure accountability and transparency in government finances.
“It is a very cruel blow to his family, that he was denied the opportunity to spend quality with them now after having served his country so well,” Foster-Pedley said.
“When we teach our students, across Henley Africa’s unique ladder of learning, the vital importance of ethics and encourage corporate activism from the shop floor to the boardroom, Kimi Makwetu’s life and career will be a lodestone to which we shall not only refer, but to which we should all aspire – if we are truly committed to building the leaders that will build the businesses that will build Africa.”