Law firm defends Makwakwa report

International law firm Hogan Lovells yesterday denied it had been involved in a “whitewash” when it probed former South African Revenue Service (Sars) senior official Jonas Makwakwa prior to a disciplinary hearing that cleared him.

Briefing parliament’s standing committee on public accounts, Hogan Lovells’ chairperson Lavery Modise said their letter of engagement dictated they look into whether several suspicious payments into the then chief officer of business and individual tax’s personal bank accounts between 2010 and 2016 of over R2 million, was in breach of the revenue service’s “internal policies and/or the Public Finance Management Act”.

Modise said his firm was not contracted to probe whether Makwakwa’s actions amounted to criminal conduct. This, he said, was law enforcement agencies’ job.

Former Sars boss Tom Moyane suspended Makwakwa in 2016 after a report by the Financial Intelligence Centre flagging the suspicious payments. Hogan Lovells was contracted and its report concluded disciplinary charges against Makwakwa be preferred.

The disciplinary hearing, based on the report, cleared him and he returned to his job last year, but resigned in March after new allegations emerged. Moyane was then suspended by President Cyril Ramaphosa before a disciplinary inquiry into the management of the Makwakwa matter was meant to resume. – ANA