An award-winning University of Johannesburg ethics programme built around the documentary Steinheist draws uncomfortable questions about whether South Africa is turning one of its biggest corporate scandals into a classroom exercise before the country has fully confronted the scale of public anger and accountability failures exposed by the collapse.
The project, which won the Ethics Initiative of the Year Award 2026 from The Ethics Institute, uses the Steinhoff scandal to teach auditing and ethics students about governance failure, professional responsibility and ethical decision-making.
But critics of South Africa’s handling of the scandal might see something else unfolding beneath the language of reflection, ethical awareness and professional judgment: the gradual institutional softening of outrage over a corporate collapse that destroyed billions in value while many South Africans believe accountability never matched the damage.
The programme was developed by UJ academics Justine Nkobane and Karlien Dempsey, and has been recognised as one of the country’s top ethics education projects.
According to a social media post circulated after the award ceremony, the project was praised for advancing “ethical leadership, awareness and innovation in accounting education”.
Yet, the project arrives in a country where Steinhoff occupies an unresolved place in the public imagination.
Elite corporate misconduct treated differently
For many South Africans, the scandal became a symbol of how elite corporate misconduct often escapes the level of sustained political anger directed at corruption involving the state.
While state capture triggered commissions, rolling activism, public campaigns and years of moral condemnation, Steinhoff gradually drifted into technical legal settlements, governance discussions and analysis.
The fury subsided long before the social wound fully closed.
UJ’s presentation describes the programme as a way of helping students understand “ethical failure, governance breakdowns and corporate misconduct in a South African context”.
But the language of reflection and structured learning could itself become part of the criticism. Because nearly a decade after the collapse, some still argue that South Africa does not need closure on Steinhoff.
The project presentation says students are encouraged to “question rationalisations and assumptions” and identify governance failures and stakeholder responsibilities.
Ironically, that same questions could now be turned back onto broader society itself. Why did one of the country’s most devastating corporate scandals lose its emotional force so quickly? Why did civil society organisations appear comparatively quieter when corporate elites stood accused of misconduct?
One section of the presentation states that the programme explores “power, gender and race dynamics”.
The framing touches another sensitive fault line in South African public life: whether race, class and economic power shape how outrage is distributed in corruption scandals.
By institutionalising Steinhoff as an ethics-learning tool, the transition risks creating the impression that the country has moved from outrage to reflection before justice ever fully arrived.
- Stone is political editor
- The University of Johannesburg's ethics programme uses the Steinhoff corporate scandal to teach governance failure, professional responsibility, and ethical decision-making, earning the Ethics Initiative of the Year Award 2026.
- Critics argue that turning the scandal into a classroom exercise risks softening public outrage and obscuring ongoing accountability failures linked to the collapse.
- While Steinhoff's scandal destroyed billions, it did not provoke the sustained political and social activism seen with state corruption cases in South Africa.
- The programme encourages students to critically examine governance failures, power dynamics, and socio-economic factors in corporate ethics, reflecting unresolved public tensions around race, class, and accountability.
- Some view institutionalising the scandal for educational purposes as premature, suggesting society may have moved from outrage to reflection before achieving full justice or closure.
