Manuel: we must restore integrity of the state

Before last year’s budget speech, former minister of finance Trevor Manuel quipped that if he were reappointed to his old job for a day. he’d fire Sars commissioner Tom Moyane.

Manuel, now chairperson of Old Mutual Emerging Markets, yesterday again raised his con- cerns about the state of Sars under its current leadership.

“State capture is a fundamentally important issue. A big challenge for us as a country is how we are able to restore the integrity of state institutions that have been caught up in this web. And it’s not an easy task.

“When we built the revenue service, we were able to attract smart people who said I will give the country five or seven years, make a big contribution, and then I can move on. But people no longer want to do that. People don’t want to join failing institutions.”

Manuel argued that South Africans need to look beyond party politics for finding solutions to SA’s problems.

“Part of what we need to understand is that we must transcend party political issues. We have a very strong constitution and before we deal with the parties, let’s deal with the values of our constitution. There are deep commitments made in that constitution, commitments that aren’t being realised, commitments that are only paid lip service to.”

The challenge is for everyone to play a more active role in protecting the constitution, he said.

“If our constitution were functioning properly and if all of us were more interested in the quality of public representatives we have, then I think the country would be in a much better place.”