FSCA says Jooste's death won't impact ongoing investigation

CAPE TOWN - Up until his death on Thursday, disgraced former Steinhoff CEO Markus Jooste managed to evade accountability for the company’s accounting scandal for more than six years.

The only time he appeared in public to explain his role in the share price crash, was in Parliament, in 2018.

Jooste took his own life on a beach in Hermanus, after he was expected to hand himself over to police on Friday to face fraud and racketeering charges.

He told MPs that, "the mistakes as I have mentioned before, over a 29 year period, you make lots of mistakes. So that certainly happened."

Since the Steinhoff crash in December 2017, Jooste lost an array of assets, faced several financial sector investigations and also criminal charges in Germany.

He dodged the latter by claiming he was not allowed to leave South Africa and continued to hold on to a lavish home in Hermanus where he lived until his death.

After nine months of dodging Parliament, he appeared at a joint meeting of three committees in September 2018, after being subpoenaed and arrived with an army of lawyers.

MPs were under strict instructions about the questions they could pose and Jooste frustrated them by shifting the blame for the accounting irregularities.

"The biggest strategic mistake we made was to pick the wrong partner."

The committees pushed him repeatedly to accept his role in the debacle.

"I said I would take it like a man for the mistakes I made, and I have lost my whole career that I spent with Steinhoff."

The Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) said Jooste's death won't impact the ongoing investigation into Steinhoff, which includes other individuals.