Auditor choice raises more doubts

Singapore

IN most cases, companies undergo special audits to clear doubts and assure its various stakeholders.

But with its recent decision to name PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) as its special auditor, SingPost has inadvertently raised more doubts and opened itself to more criticism.

Defending the choice of PwC, audit committee chairman Soo Nam Chow said on Tuesday that the board had wanted to "address the matter" of the corporate governance special audit "in the most expeditious way" and was "satisfied with our own internal evaluations".

But in tapping PwC without first calling for proposals and thoroughly evaluating them, the board runs straight into the very "perceptional …