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More light was shed on the divisive policies employed by suspended Sars commissioner Tom Moyane and management consulting firm Bain & Company in formulating a new operating model allegedly used to break down the efficiency of the revenue service, resulting in the exodus of highly skilled employees and the syphoning of taxpayers’ money.
Testimony was given on Wednesday by a member of Sars’ anti-corruption structure dealing with internal corruption matters.
The employee, who requested to remain anonymous, detailed the inner workings of processes implemented by Moyane and those loyal to him, particularly in disrupting the organisation’s internal investigative units.
Witness X explained that in 2008, under the leadership of Pravin Gordhan, Sars had seen the need to synergise all investigative units in the organisation for the sake of having a more effective and centralised unit.
Following this centralisation, the efficiency of the Sars investigative units passed two compliance audits carried out by the department of public service and administration in 2010 and 2013.
Regardless of the “stellar” work being done by the centralised investigative units Moyane, through a “newsflash”, disbanded the synergised units citing a need for “realignment”.
“The anti-corruption unit was restructured with urgency [following Moyane’s appointment] as part of the new business model by Bain.
"In two separate audits, the department of public service and administration found that the units were performing far better as units than they were prior to the centralisation, therefore their disbanding came as a surprise,” said Witness X.
As part of the realignment, the formerly effective Sars anti-corruption unit found itself investigating watered-down cases.
“Instead of investigation syndicates that were in cahoots with corrupt Sars officials, as was the norm when the unit was still centralised, we found ourselves demoted to investigating fake doctors’ notes provided by employees,” said Witness X.
It was subsequent to this neutralising of the unit, according to Witness X, that the infamous tobacco task team was formed.
The task team – which later found itself labelled as a rouge unit by the media – was initially implemented to investigate elicit tobacco syndicates working in connection with Sars officials to defraud Sars of billions of rands annually.
This task team, however, shifted focus and instead set its sights on internal investigations on fellow Sars officials seen as a threat to Moyane and his alleged underhanded dealings.
“If you go into any of those cases [investigated by the task team] none of them deal with suspects being a part of big syndicates and cigarette smuggling. In fact a lot of them had to do with behavioural issues [of Sars employees],” said Witness X.
In an investigation that cost taxpayers R3 million, Sars’ acting senior manager of fraud investigations, Yousuf Denath, who worked closely with witness X was one of the officials who was targeted by the task team.
He was initially accused of “colluding with British American Tobacco and undermining Amalgamated Tobacco Manufacturing’s Yusuf Kajee and his associate Edward Zuma”, the eldest son of former president Jacob Zuma.
Denath told the commission that he was placed on suspension for one year and three months over allegations that were later found to be a “sham” by the presiding officer in his disciplinary hearing, leading to him being reinstated.
“I was being targeted because they needed to take over this post and control fraud investigations. This was Sars capture,” Denath told the commission.
It is not clear when exactly the task team was set up, but is understood to be during the course of 2016.
What was made clear by both witnesses was the fact that the task team was driven by Moyane and supported by his chief officer, Hlengani Mathebula.
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