Despite the huge and surprising scale of the alleged kickbacks, Gartner is not alone.
Almost all the dominant global technology consulting firms have been implicated so far by a South African investigation into bribery. Bain, McKinsey, SAP have all been implicated in ‘dodgy’ government contract negotiations in this ongoing state capture investigation.
The lynchpin in these contracts is salespeople within the corporates who are well connected to government and are made responsible for public sector sales. Many of these salespeople will be naivé, rather than consciously criminal, in the lax structuring of their contracts.
Although they are employed for their government connections, I am not convinced that they knowingly or deliberately entered into illegal agreements.
