Zuma believes Nugent had no right to recommend Moyane’s axing

Former president Jacob Zuma has made a submission on the firing of former South African Revenue Service (Sars) commissioner Tom Moyane, and he’s far from happy about it.

Zuma believes Judge Robert Nugent was not asked to deal with the individual contracts of employees at the revenue service, which, according to Zuma, means he could never have been empowered to recommend Moyane’s axing.

Moyane is fighting his dismissal by attempting to have the Constitutional Court intervene. He has taken issue with having been subjected to both a disciplinary process and the Nugent commission, which he describes as a kind of “double jeopardy”. He clearly now enjoys the support of his former political principal, whose lawyer Eric Mabuza confirmed to the website had filed his supporting affidavit to the Constitutional Court.

In the document, he says President Cyril Ramaphosa merely implemented the commission, which had actually been recommended by Zuma during his presidency. It was apparently then minister Malusi Gigaba’s idea.

Zuma had sat on it until his removal in February, however.

It was not Zuma’s “intention” or “contemplation” that Nugent would release an interim report before the supposed gathering of all evidence, Zuma also reportedly wrote, calling Ramaphosa a man who had “diligently served as my deputy president and … would have been familiar with the most important and relevant decisions made by the cabinet and/or the presidency”.

In effect, he was therefore saying something of the sort that “Cyril should have known better”.

Professor Dirk Kotze from Unisa wrote earlier this month that the sacking of Moyane was one of the most significant steps in reducing Zuma’s continued influence over state affairs.

“Moyane’s axing ends one of the last vestiges of Zuma’s continued influence in the country’s governance. It’s also important because Moyane played a critical role in the three focus areas of Ramaphosa’s post-Zuma agenda. These priorities are economic innovation and vitalisation, dismantling the state capture infrastructure and culture, and ridding the governing ANC of Zuma’s influence.

“All three are related. Moyane touched them all.”

He said it was likely that Moyane had been handpicked for the Sars job directly by Zuma and that he “wasn’t put into the job by the ANC, as he has never been a member of the party’s national executive committee – its highest decision-making body between national conferences”.

He concluded: “It’s uncertain if Moyane was acting mainly to protect or promote Zuma’s interests at the South African Revenue Service, or whether he was simply a willing agent for other interests, mainly in the private sector, which coincided with Zuma’s interests.

“Also unclear is the revenue service’s exact role in state capture under him, by exploiting its position as the best-placed state institution to monitor individuals’ and companies’ financial flows.”

He said he hoped the Nugent commission of inquiry would hopefully provide more clarity on this in its final report expected at the end of November.

(Compiled by Gopolang Chawane. Edited by Charles Cilliers)

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