Rogue unit report ‘hatchet job to unseat Pravin’

The inspector-general of intelligence (IGI) report on media allegations against the special operations unit and branches of the State Security Agency (SSA) is a “hatchet job” trying to unseat Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan.

That’s according to the former head of enforcement at SA Revenue Service (Sars), Gene Ravele, who claimed the report was not a correct reflection of what he had told the panel.

“I can’t continue to keep quiet when my name is continuously being dragged through the mud,” Ravele told The Citizen.

The report was partially based on allegations made in the widely discredited “Project Snowman” report by disgruntled former Sars employee Michael Peega, responsible with triple agent Belinda Walter for the “rogue unit” allegations that severely impacted Sars’ investigative abilities.

According to the report, Ravele had “intimated” the former acting commissioner was protecting former group executive Johann van Loggerenberg, who had leaked Sars information to the media and that the covert unit was “intended to cripple the then National Intelligence Agency”(forerunner to today’s SSA), among other claims.

“The IGI investigation was into claims made by us (Sars) that there was a SSA rogue unit and some elements in the Hawks, crime intelligence and the National Prosecuting Authority that were trying to destabilise Sars,” Ravele said.

“I appeared twice before the panel and on the first day spent probably 80% of the time talking about the destabilisation of Sars. Yet the report doesn’t mention anything of the sort.”

When Ravele appeared for a second time, then IGI Faith Radebe had already spoken to the people he had claimed were responsible for the destabilisation at Sars.

“She said I had painted a picture of Sars as a victim of a SSAled destabilisation when, in fact, I hid from the panel the fact that I was running a covert intelligence-gathering machinery,” said Ravele.

“I told the IG that [former Sars commissioner Tom] Moyane had asked me to compile a report on the unit, which I duly submitted to him.

“I also , with Moyane’s permission, later shared the report with her. Some of the things the report disputed was that Zuma’s house was raided or bugged.

“The reports by former members of the unit were annexures in my report to Moyane.”

Radebe appeared to have relied heavily on the widely discredited report by Peega.

The report was completed around the time Sars began hunting down EFF leader Julius Malema for millions owed in taxes.

“What is attributed to me is an intentional distortion of facts which was aimed at achieving a particular political objective,” Ravele said

Van Loggerenberg maintained his innocence over the Sars rogue unit.

Ravele said people’s lives had been destroyed by the disinformation campaign. “I haven’t fully recovered from the onslaught that was aimed at me by Sars. I and some of my former colleagues still don’t have regular employment because of the onslaught.

“When is this going to end? How many more lives still need to be destroyed?”