Sars finally washes its hands of ‘rogue unit’ report

The South African Revenue Services (Sars) is washing its hands of advocate Muzi Sikhakhane’s now infamous 2014 “rogue unit” report.

Sars on Tuesday confirmed it had written to Sikhakhane – as well to the chief executive officer of auditing firm
KPMG, Ignatius Sehoole – to “clarify” its position in respect of the reports the two produced for it in 2014 and 2015 respectively.

This after the e-mail to Sikhakhane was leaked on social media.

In the e-mail, Sars commissioner Edward Kieswetter said the time had come for Sars to express a “definite opinion”  on the status of Sikhakhane’s report.

He said while it was not for Sars to withdraw the report – something which only Sikhakhane could do – the revenue services could take a position regarding the “standing” of the report and that they planned to. That position, Kieswetter said, was that Sars would not “place reliance on nor utilise the report for any purpose”.

In 2014, Sars appointed Sikhakhane to lead an investigation into allegations of impropriety on the part of then head of the High Risk Investigations Unit (HRIU) Johann van Loggerenberg. It was on the back of the ensuing report –  which found a “rogue unit” had been unlawfully established – that KPMG was then also appointed to investigate and ended up recommending a criminal probe be instituted.

The narrative at  the heart of these investigations has since been widely discredited and earlier this year, News24 reported that an internal Sars report had recommended the KPMG and Sikhakhane reports both be officially scrapped and that the revenue services apologise to affected employees as well as move to reparate them in line with the  Nugent Commission’s recommendations.

News emerged in September that KPMG had agreed to “some kind of reparations” for Sars staffers who were “traumatised” as a result of the firm’s report and the recent e-mail correspondence between Kieswetter and Sikhakhane also made mention of a process being underway.

In it, Kieswetter said Sars was busy finalising an “internal reparation process for current Sars employees” and that the services, together with KPMG, were also “at the point of initiating the reparations process with some former  employees”.

Independent illicit trade expert Telita Snyckers said on Tuesday though, she had been in touch with some of the
staff and Sars had not been in contact with them – adding she thought it displayed “a shocking lack of empathy”.

And Van Loggerenberg, who has spoken publicly on the impact of the “rogue unit” narrative on himself and his former colleagues, said it was “a travesty” that Sars had waited so long to take this stance.

“The publication of that report in April 2015 was unlawful and illegal, and placed the lives of dedicated officials and their families at great risk. It severely traumatised many in ways that they will never recover from. It also publicly humiliated several people for absolutely no reason whatsoever,” he said.

Van Loggerenberg pointed to a recent interview with Sikhakhane that appeared in the Sunday Times, in which he said his report was an “internal” document which only sought to reflect “what people were saying” and that these claims were yet to be “checked”.

“What this means is that he merely compiled a list of all kinds of allegations, none which were made under oath, all stated behind closed doors, many unattributed to people, none open to public scrutiny or cross-examination by those affected or even put to me to answer to,” Van Loggerenberg said.

Sars said in its statement on Tuesday it was “unfortunate” that the matter had ended up in the public domain.

“Throughout this process the commissioner of Sars has always intended to manage the process with dignity and outside the public domain, because it touches the lives of many of its current and former employees,” it said.

“The commissioner continues to express the hope that the process will continue to be dignified and private, and he will therefore not divulge any information that is personal”.

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