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President Cyril Ramaphosa has accepted suspended South African Revenue Service commissioner Tom Moyane’s request that the disciplinary hearing against Moyane be completed before the resumption of the inquiry into Sars.
The inquiry was running simultaneously to a disciplinary hearing into Moyane’s conduct.
In a media briefing on Monday, Moyane’s lawyer Eric Mabuza said Ramaphosa had replied to the letter sent to him by his client and accepted his requet.
“In the letter, which my client welcomes with a breath of fresh air, the president has said that he would await advocate Azhar Bham’s disciplinary hearing before any more action against Moyane would be taken,” Mabuza said.
Last week Moyane’s lawyers wrote to Ramaphosa demanding that he halt or “disestablish or stay one or both” of the revenue’s inquiries.
They made it clear that failure to do so would force Moyane to approach the Constitutional Court.
Moyane’s lawyers argued that the parallel proceedings – the disciplinary hearing led by Bham and the Sars commission of inquiry led by former judge Robert Nugent – were disadvantageous towards their client and, in the “interest of fairness”, one or both proceedings should be halted.
According to Mabuza, Ramaphosa met the Friday deadline given to him by Moyane and said he would be awaiting the finding of the disciplinary hearing before acting on findings by the Sars commission of inquiry.
Through his lawyers, Mabuza and Advocate Dali Mpofu, Moyane has maintained that the proceedings of the Sars commission were unlawful.
The major bone of contention was that the commission was constituted while Moyane’s disciplinary hearing was still ongoing, as well as the fact that the president’s own legal counsel, Professor Michael Katz, was appointed as assistant to Nugent despite there being a clear conflict of interest.
According to Mpofu, the appointment of Katz “gave the impression that the commission was not fair” towards his client.
EFF leader Julius Malema also hit out at the legality of the commission in his media briefing last week, saying “a lot seemed to be amiss with the proceedings”.
“Firstly the affidavit submitted against Moyane was from [Public Enterprises] Minister Pravin Gordhan and not the president himself, who had raised concerns about Moyane’s conduct.”
Malema, who made it clear that he was not an admirer of Moyane and his conduct while in office, said the entire process against the suspended Sars commissioner seemed like a witch-hunt.
Mabuza concurred. “Moyane has been subjected to verbal insults, wild and unfounded accusation, a trial by the media, a parallel inquiry and an inadmissible affidavit was submitted by a hostile minister of an irrelevant portfolio Pravin Gordhan,” he said.
The presidency has maintained that a “commission of inquiry is not a court of law and neither is it a tribunal that can make binding findings against any individual.
“In terms of our law, the president has the power to appoint a commission of inquiry on any topic of public importance and to decide on its terms of reference. Ideally the aim is to get as much information as possible to assist the commission to write a thorough report that will assist the president to make informed policy decisions on the issue investigated.”
Ramaphosa’s response came as a reprieve to Moyane, who suffered a blow last Monday when Nugent rejected his demand for the Sars inquiry to be halted.
Mabuza claimed that both inquiries were unfair, irrational and a waste of taxpayers’ money.
He demanded that Ramaphosa remove Katz from the commission and said Moyane wanted his disciplinary inquiry not to rely on the affidavit filed by Gordhan.
