Search on for new tax boss

MINISTER APPOINTS PANEL TO FIND REPLACEMENT FOR SACKED TOM MOYANE Experts begin task with Trevor Manuel in the chair.

Apanel appointed by Finance Minister Tito Mboweni has been tasked with recommending a new SA Revenue Service (Sars) commissioner, following President Cyril Ramaphosa’s sacking of Tom Moyane.

Chaired by former finance minister Trevor Manuel, it will also include Judge Dennis Davis, deputy director-general of Treasury Ismail Momoniat, businesswomen Sindi Mabaso-Koyana and Angela Bester, advocate Thandi Orleyn, and packaging company Nampak’s human resources director, Fezekile Tshiqi.

Mboweni will submit the panel’s recommendations to the president for his consideration.

The ministry said the panel had already started its work and was expected to complete the process in the next few weeks.

Moyane was served with a termination of service letter by Ramaphosa in November last year after Judge Robert Nugent’s recommendation that Moyane should be dismissed, following the findings of his Commission of Inquiry into Tax Administration and Governance by Sars.

A report by the commission tasked Ramaphosa with appointing a new commissioner.

“We stress the replacement of Moyane is not a panacea‚ but only the first necessary measure without which there is no possibility of rectifying the damage that has been done to Sars‚” the report read.

Ramaphosa at the time welcomed the judgment by the High Court in Pretoria to uphold the dismissal of Moyane, after the dismissed former commissioner had gone the legal route in a bid to get his job back.

Ramaphosa described the judgment as a step towards stabilising Sars. The ruling was needed to restore the confidence of both corporate and personal taxpayers at Sars, he said.