Indications that the ABC report into the circulation fraud at Media 24's magazine division does not point any fingers at individuals - at least not senior individuals - are likely to disappoint some people.
But this failure in the report does not necessarily diminish its value. That can only be determined when the report - or at least its conclusion - is made public, which should be in a few weeks' time.
Media 24 chief executive Hein Brand believes senior individuals in the organisation have been held responsible for the problems, and indicates that it would be inappropriate for that chain of responsibility to stretch all the way to the top of the magazine division, namely Patricia Scholtemeyer.
Of course, if you go that far then the question obviously becomes: why not further? Which would be to Brand. And why not further still - to Koos Bekker, who is nearing the end of his year's sabbatical but would have been the responsible chief executive of Naspers when the fraud was being perpetrated?
During the competition tribunal hearings into Naspers's acquisition of Avusa's (then Johnnic Communications') M-Net/ SuperSport stake, Scholtemeyer said the fraud involved "the actual writing of fictitious invoices" by a number of employees.
She noted that the company's investigations - to that date - had not been able to ascertain the reason why the circulation figures had been inflated. There appeared to be no financial gain for the individuals.
"There is lots of speculation around competitive elements of pressure, but we are trying to understand it."
This prompted the questioning counsel to ask: "Would it be wrong to infer that there is a no-holds-barred culture within your company?"
To which Scholtemeyer replied: "There is absolutely no such culture."
Presumably the ABC report will shed some light on all this.
"Don't use credit to fund essential monthly purchases such as food," is a wise maxim that seems to have fallen out of favour in the current credit boom.
Consumers are ignoring the basic premise that if one wants to avoid falling into the silk-lined debt trap offered by companies, long-term debt should be used only to fund long-term assets, not consumables such as food and holidays.
Customers of Woolworths Food and the supermarket groups have long been funding daily consumption on credit. They were encouraged by stores and banks, which, much like furniture retailers, went on a credit granting spree before the June introduction of the stricter lending criteria under the new National Credit Act (NCA).
Woolworths may well have intended its store cards for clothing purchases, but the food looked enticing too. Buying on credit is just so easy when you have it. Sales flew.
Shoprite and Pick n Pay do not have supermarket store cards, but their customers with bank credit cards would not have been totally immune to this phenomenon.
This credit provider account grab distorted retail sales in two ways - and probably car and housing sales too.
First, before June, retail sales were stronger for longer than they would have been had there been no NCA. The run-up to the act gave the retail boom, which was showing signs of slowing, a second wind.
Second, in June, sales of big-ticket items suddenly started declining dramatically. Much attention was given to falling car and furniture sales, but the reversal of a trend at Woolworths, which had previously never had declines in like-for-like food sales, was less noticed.
Despite the distortion to retail sales caused by the NCA, which rendered many comparative period retail reports relatively meaningless, the law has put the brakes on the consumer in a way that even Reserve Bank governor Tito Mboweni's higher interest rates has been unable to.
And it is doing a great job reining in a culture of reckless credit extension so prevalent among the furniture retailers.
- Edited by Quentin Wray. With contributions by Thabiso Mochiko, Ann Crotty and Tom Robbins