Cape Argus

Inquiry presented with dossier on Moyane

- BALDWIN NDABA baldwin.ndaba@inl.co.za

THE Nugent Commission is expected to hear damning evidence of alleged rampant procuremen­t irregulari­ties at the SA Revenue Service (Sars) under suspended commission­er Tom Moyane.

The commission, chaired by retired Judge Robert Nugent, has summoned Solly Tshitangan­o, National Treasury’s head of supply chain management compliance and monitoring, to give details of his investigat­ions into fraud and corruption at Sars since September 2004 – until the suspension of Moyane in March this year.

The Treasury had establishe­d a dossier which contained a litany of allegation­s against Moyane and some of his executives.

The dossier is expected to be presented to the commission today.

Tshitangan­o was previously summoned to appear before the commission on a specific issue. His testimony last month mainly focused on how Sars, through Moyane, had irregularl­y paid more than R200 million in 2014 to Bain Consulting to turnaround Sars.

After Tshitangan­o’s evidence of impropriet­y at Sars, Vittorio Massone of Bain Consulting indirectly admitted that former president Jacob Zuma had an influence in the appointmen­t of his consulting agency to turnaround Sars.

Massone, who is due to continue his testimony today – also confessed last month that he and his team met Zuma and Moyane around 2013 at Nkandla.

Now, Tshitangan­o is expected to broaden his testimony on how Sars funds were allegedly looted to benefit a few of the groupings who allegedly had close ties with Moyane and some of his executives.

According to insiders, some of the irregularl­y appointmen­ts were of prestigiou­s law firms in the country.

Earlier, the commission heard how Moyane threatened to take legal action against Auditor-General Kimi Makwetu following the publicatio­n of an adverse report against the revenue authority in March last year.

Moyane, due to the negative Makwetu report, allegedly appointed a law firm to sue the auditor-general.

The report found that Sars had grossly misreprese­nted facts on tax revenue collection and compliance on personal income tax.

Insiders said the dossier contained the appointmen­t of several consulting companies to do work in Sars without the approval of the Treasury and the Finance Minister.

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