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The Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) has fined sugar producer Tongaat Hulett R7,5 million and publicly censured it for publishing financial statements that contained errors.

“Tongaat Hulett notes and accepts both the findings and the public censure issued by the JSE,” the company said in a statement yesterday.

Last year, the KwaZulu-Natal based firm was embroiled in a financial scandal that showed accounting irregularities resulting in inflated profits. Its shares plummeted and were subsequently suspended from the JSE for a period of seven months.

Since returning to the market, its stock has gained just under 17 percent. Its shares have slumped 96 percent over the past five years.

Tongaat had to include restatements in its annual financial statements for the year ended March 2019 and its unaudited interim financial results for the six months ended September 2019, as previous financial statements had contained “a substantial number of prior period errors”, the JSE said.

The material errors were included in certain of its financial reports between 2011 and 2018. — xinhuanet.com