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Neville Willemse, the head of consultancy IT firm Gartner, stumbled over his words as he faced tough questioning during the Sars Inquiry on Tuesday morning.
Gartner, which has been identified as the consultancy firm that secured a R200 million contract to provide services to Sars for its ailing IT infrastructure system was, according to Willemse’s testimony, procured illegally by Sars.
This is what evidence leader Advocate Carol Steinberg put to him, when she probed him about his interaction with Patrick Monyeki, a friend of suspended Sars commissioner Tom Moyane, during late 2014. Monyeki, Willemse said, had approached him on behalf of Sars, to perform an assessment on the existing IT framework that was in place at the time, in what essentially led to an “IT modernisation” project. Moyane appointed Gartner in 2015.
Willemse said that Monyeki told him that Gartner had been identified as the preferred service provider.
Steinberg said that both Willemse and Monyeki had written the terms of reference themselves, after meeting in 2014 and putting together notes based on that meeting.
“So‚ the long and short of it is that you and Monyeki wrote the terms of reference?” Steinberg asked.
After some back and forth, Willemse replied “yes”.
When Steinberg asked him if there were other organisations that were led through the procurement process, Willemse seemed to slur his words as he tried to explain that he was not aware of any processes that took place.
Gartner’s involvement in the revenue collector saga has proven to be a bone of contention for many critics, especially after it was revealed by Barry Hore, former Sars chief operations officer, that the review that Gartner had undertaken of Sars provided no value. Initially budgeted at R10 million, the 10-week assessment of the infrastructure cost Sars a cool R200 million.
Monyeki’s company, Rangewave Consulting, was sub-contracted to Gartner when Willemse realised that he needed additional resources for the project. When he approached Monyeki to supply him with potential CVs of qualified personnel, 30% to 40% of the contract was awarded to Rangewave Consulting.
He also said that he had never questioned Monyeki about his relationship with Sars, and no red flags had gone off because he was not dealing with Sars directly.
Professor Michael Katz asked Willemse about why he had not asked Monyeki about his relationship with Sars.
“But you’re pumping so many resources into this project; surely you want to know who this person is who is getting involved in the project?” Katz said.
“I didn’t find the need to do so,” Willemse replied.
When Steinberg asked him if he was ignorant of procurement law, Willemse said he was not fully versed in it.
Andre Scheepers, who was a former executive in the IT division of Sars had also previously testified that there was no benefit to hiring Gartner, and that the work done by Gartner had “moved us backwards”.
The inquiry continued throughout the day.
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