The ‘rogue unit’ narrative was a great disservice to public interest, and made up of lies and distortions
IN time, the full measure of the damage caused to the South African Revenue Service arising from false news coverage will manifest itself in a tarnished reputation, questionable independence and lower levels of compliance with tax and customs law. Make no mistake. This is about far more than us losing our jobs.
At SARS, we were mindful that it would take extraordinary effort to build South Africa. Pravin Gordhan reminded us that our work served a higher purpose: to build a constitutional democracy. Contact between citizens and the state must build mutual trust. We strove to build a nonracial, nonsexist future in tandem with our mandate.
We continuously explained why all should pay tax. We made it easy to comply with the law. We wielded a credible enforcement capability. We established a clean and fair administration. You were assured that your monies were safe with us.
Enforcement units of a tax authority are a legitimate matter of public debate. It is proper and necessary to inquire about government bodies that intrude on their lives. But, when doing so, we have a responsibility to sustain the institutions that underpin the work of the government.
The “rogue unit” narrative was a great disservice to the public interest. One error would be understandable, but the persistent lies and distortions, and the pattern by which allegations were reported, lead to one conclusion — the news reports were not motivated by public interest.
The pattern has been consistent. Internal documents are leaked by people in SARS and the State Security Agency to certain journalists at the Sunday Times. In turn, facts are distorted or falsified. SARS then responds by feigning shock and surprise and launching an “investigation” (a “probe”, in the media parlance). The reports, arising from these “probes” by lawyers or auditors — which repeat the allegations — are leaked to the media again. This generates further news coverage.
During all of this I and other affected SARS officials were legally precluded from responding to the allegations or protecting our reputations.
In the latest instance, a report from KPMG with blatantly false allegations was leaked to the media. Among its “findings” was an allegation that Ronnie Kasrils had been favoured unlawfully. A few days later, the taxpayer published his tax accounts, proving this a lie. This allegation was never retracted or corrected. It’s anybody’s guess whether KPMG corrected its “finding”.
Another example: a former SARS official was reported to have been bribed to leave SARS and stay silent about an alleged bugging of President Jacob Zuma. The official had denied this in writing and explained the circumstances of his departure from SARS to the Sunday Times. This did not stop the paper from writing that he “did not comment”. This is not shoddiness. It’s a deliberate lie.
It is no secret that tax authorities make many adversaries. They range from ex-employees and influential persons to criminals. There have been many attempts to discredit SARS investigators in the past. They often come as “intelligence dossiers” that purport to reveal the “truth” by “insiders”.
When allegations surfaced in 2009, we invited the National Intelligence Agency to investigate. We co-operated fully. Since 2010 I have repeatedly asked for the report on the investigation, to no avail.
The Muzi Sikhakhane panel was instituted by me to investigate specific allegations against my colleague Johann van Loggerenberg. There was no reference to a “rogue unit” at that stage. I have publicly criticised the Sikhakhane report for its errors in fact and law. Because a full critique of the report is likely to be a matter of future litigation, I limit my comment here. Sikhakhane contended that SARS should not be in the business of investigating “organised crime”. This is a dangerous notion that contradicts international trends. Virtually every revenue authority worldwide has capabilities to combat organised crime. The illicit economy is a very serious threat to any country.
When I appeared before Sikhakhane in its last days, no question was raised about a “rogue unit”. Most of the allegations that became central to the report were never raised.
Despite that, I submitted a full description of the formation of all the various enforcement units, operations and an explanation for equipment that was claimed to have been “discovered”. The equipment is commercially available and was never acquired by the unit in question.
The input of my colleagues and myself was dismissed as a “wellrehearsed narrative”.
The report claims nobody volunteered information about a National Research Group or other units. Yet the report thanks me for my initial conversation with the panel in September 2014 in which I explained the formation of this unit.
Allegations about a “rogue unit” only surfaced in the media in October 2014, after the appointment of the new SARS commissioner. Unbeknown to us, the unit became the centre of the “probe”. Thereafter, Sikhakhane never engaged with anybody affected. I can only conclude that he had already decided to disregard my views.
Sikhakhane, without any facts or proof, simply asserts that the unit could have unfairly influenced settlements. The report is littered with assumptions . . . [presented] as if fact. The Kroon advisory committee later merely rubber-stamped this flawed report. The less said about Kroon the better.
Following Sikhakhane, KPMG was appointed. It now claims that SARS did not allow it to put its allegations to us to answer. More worrying: KPMG uses the same loose words and phrases of Sikhakhane’s report, suggesting we are devious and corrupt. KPMG’s is not a forensic report.
Some, styling themselves “investigative journalists”, failed to spot even basic mistakes, determine elementary facts (whether a KPMG report is final or not), or refer to contradictory information, available publicly.
Over many years SARS built public trust based on professional service, integrity, fairness and commitment to our constitution. The Sunday Times’s reportage did a great injustice to all of this.
Allegations about a ‘rogue unit’ only surfaced . . . after the appointment of the new SARS commissioner