Sars spin doctor ‘cut out of loop’

‘I WASN’T CONSULTED ABOUT MEDIA STATEMENT’ Lackay informed most of his functions would be handed over.

Former South African Revenue Service (Sars) spokesperson Adrian Lackay continued to paint a picture of a crumbling top structure under its commissioner, Tom Moyane, at his Council for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration hearing for constructive dismissal in Johannesburg yesterday.

When Sars’ executive committee was disbanded, he was never informed of the reason, leaving him unable to answer media queries, Lackay said. He testified that the executive committee was dissolved in a closed-door meeting involving the top leadership of Sars and was not meant be leaked to the media. “To my knowledge, no investigation was conducted and no attempts were made to try and establish if indeed two senior Sars officials who attended the meeting did in fact speak to the Sunday Times and did disclose verbatim, confidential Sars information,” said Lackay.

“No instruction or request came to myself or to my colleague, Ms [Marika] Muller, to engage the newspaper.”

He said Moyane made no attempt to deny the allegation that Sars “in some way or form engaged the services of prostitutes”.

Lackay said he was steadily cut out of the loop as Moyane began to make more and more use of his deputy, Muller, while ignoring him. He said neither Moyane nor Muller had explained why he had been cut out of the loop.

During December 2014, matters between Moyane and Lackay began to come to a head. “Moyane had decided to suspend Sars deputy Ivan Pillay and group executive of strategic planning and risk Peter Richter, and said their suspensions should be announced in the form of a statement to the media in his name. This statement was hugely important,” Lackay said, stating he was not consulted about it.

Towards the end of January 2015, Lackay was informed by then chief operating officer Jonas Makwakwa that Luther Lebelo would be taking over most of his functions as spokesperson. When Lackay saw two jobs at Sars being advertised containing elements of his job description as senior specialist; media liaison, he became “very anxious” about his future.

Advocate Wisani Sibuyi for Sars said he was prepared to agree the advertisement was for Lackay’s job, but that there was to be two positions of the same seniority with different specifications. –

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