Moyane is down but not yet totally knocked out

Tom Moyane’s desperate rearguard action to hold on to his job as SA Revenue Service (Sars) commissioner ended in defeat yesterday when he was fired, with immediate effect, by President Cyril Ramaphosa.

But the issues still look set to end up in court after Moyane’s open challenge to Ramaphosa last month about the recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry into Tax Administration and Governance at Sars.

A statement from the presidency said the decision had been taken following “the recommendation made by the Sars commission chaired by Judge Robert Nugent that immediate action is needed to forestall any further deterioration of our tax administration system”.

The presidency said Ramaphosa had sent a letter to Moyane, which noted that the interim report of the commission “paints a deeply concerning picture of the current state of Sars and the reckless mismanagement whichcharacterised your tenure as commissioner of Sars.”

The letter went on: “Of further, and in many ways greater, concern is your refusal to meaningfully participate in the Sars commission in order to assist with identifying the root causes of the systemic failures at Sars and ways in which to arrest these.”

Ramaphosa indicated in his letter that the representations submitted by Moyane in response to the recommendations of the commission fail entirely to deal with the substantive issues the report raises.

“The interim report makes clear that there is considerable evidence, which the Sars commission gathered, indicating that in order to resolve the challenges at Sars, it would be best to terminate your services,” he said.

The statement said acting Sars commissioner Mark Kingon “remains in place until such time as the vacancy of national commissioner is filled”.

Moyane failed in his bid to face down Nugent and Ramaphosa with his own letter to the president earlier this month, which set Ramaphosa a deadline to react to his (Moyane’s) responses to Nugent. Moyane did not testify at the commission, citing “inherent bias” and “gross unfairness” in a document Nugent called a disgrace and “littered with abuse, invective and sinister suggestion”.

“What is clear to the commission is that Sars reeks of intrigue, fear, distrust and suspicion. We have heard of it repeatedly in evidence, and we have encountered it ourselves,” Nugent wrote.

The recommendation went on to say Moyane’s dismissal should happen “regardless of what the outcome of his disciplinary inquiry is”, and Ramaphosa should appoint a new commissioner.

“We stress that the replacement of Mr Moyane is not a panacea‚ but only the first necessary measure without which there is no possibility of rectifying the damage that has been done to Sars‚ and any further recommendations will be fruitless,” the report read. However, in the combative letter to Ramaphosa, Moyane accused Nugent of pursuing a predetermined outcome.

Moyane’s attorney, Eric Mabuza, was reported to have said that Moyane was never given an opportunity to confront his accusers. Mabuza claimed Nugent’s report was based on a “deliberate distortion of facts”. Mabuza claimed Nugent made Moyane look like the “Devil incarnate”.

The DA welcomed Moyane’s axing. The party’s shadow minister of finance, Alf Lees, said that “in the short period of a mere three and-a-half years in charge of Sars, Tom Moyane managed to reduce the vital entity from being a world leader in tax collection to being a friend of the ANC’s state capture project”.

He quoted Nugent’s words that “the day Mr Moyane took office was a calamity for Sars”. Lees continued: “The DA expresses its thanks to Mark Kingon, the acting Sars commissioner, for taking on the very difficult task of stopping the destruction at Sars and starting to fix the rot left by Tom Moyane.

“We urge him to continue the work he has embarked upon and therefore ensuring that the path towards restoring taxpayer trust in Sars is not deviated from.”

Lees said that “fully restoring the reputation of Sars in the eyes of the public” would require the urgent appointment of a permanent commissioner of Sars.

Ramaphosa, said Lees, “must embark upon a completely transparent process to identify the best possible candidates of impeccable integrity and then to take considered advice from a range of experts in the tax and revenue collection fields,” before making the appointment.

– ericn@citizen.co.za

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