Inept Sars cadre a cause for alarm

The ANC didn’t come up with the idea of “cadre deployment” – a ruinous version of “jobs for pals”. In 1994, the National Party’s employment of its Afrikaans-speaking supporters was already well entrenched. Interestingly, given the latest developments, that apartheid-era system was sometimes referred to as “sheltered” or “protected” employment.

The phrase “protect” was one which the SA Revenue Service (Sars) information technology officer, Mmamathe Makhekhe-Mokhuane, used repeatedly this week in one of the most inept public performances by a civil servant in recent memory.

She wanted to be protected from what she regarded as impertinent questions from an interviewer on SABC; then she made the same request when she considered she was being harassed by Judge Robert Nugent at the Commission of Inquiry into Tax Administration and Governance at Sars.

All while she was evasive about issues related to the alleged implosion of Sars e-filing system. In many cases, in the SABC interview and the Nugent hearing, she was incoherent and rambling. Hardly what one expects of a senior government technocrat who, according to reports, gets almost R3 million a year of taxpayers’ money as a salary. No wonder Sars is a shambles. It’s the public who need protection from such cadre deployees.