Newly appointed SA Revenue Service (Sars) commissioner Edward Kieswetter says he will need all the help he can get as
he seeks to restore a once world-class institution that was wrecked during the years of state capture.
The Treasury said on Wednesday that President Cyril Ramaphosa had appointed the previous deputy commissioner, who has also been CEO of financial services company Alexander Forbes, from May 1 for a five-year term. He is part of the board that was appointed to clean up Transnet, one of the state-owned enterprises that was weakened by rampant corruption and mismanagement over the past decade.
"The country needs a well functioning and respected revenue authority that has integrity," Kieswetter told Business Day shortly after the announcement of his appointment.
"There is a big job waiting for me and so it is with a mixture of excitement, but also significant humility knowing what challenges lie before us. I will obviously need all the help I can get."
Kieswetter will take over from Mark Kingon, a Sars veteran who took over in an acting capacity after Ramaphosa suspended Tom Moyane in 2018.
The former commissioner was fired in November, in line with recommendations from judge Robert Nugent, who headed a commission of inquiry into governance failures at the institution, which were partly credited with revenue shortfalls that saw a VAT increase in 2018 for the first time in more than two decades, hurting the country’s poorest.
Nugent found that Moyane lacked integrity and had colluded with consultants Bain & Co to implement a restructuring that severely weakened the agency. Kieswetter was hired after the government followed a process recommended by Nugent, which involved the setting up of an interview panel, chaired by former finance minister Trevor Manuel.
Other members included judge Dennis Davis and Treasury tax chief Ismail Momoniat.
The Treasury said Kieswetter’s appointment was recommended by the panel. He was chosen from a list of six candidates that included Nathaniel Mabetwa, Sunita Manik, Kingon, Gene Ravele and Nazrien Kader.
Finance minister Tito Mboweni submitted the panel’s report and his recommendation to the president on Monday.
Kieswetter was deputy commissioner between 2004 and 2009, when the agency, which collects the tax revenue the government uses to fund everything from education to defence, was headed by current public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan.
The former Alexander Forbes boss had set up the large business centre and high net-worth individual unit, leading to both compliance and revenue collection improvements, the Treasury said. This was one of the units dismantled during the restructuring by Moyane and Bain. Mboweni said in his budget speech in February that the unit would be revived.
The commission recommended that the national director of public prosecutions institute criminal proceedings in connection with the awarding of the multimillion-rand contract to the consultancy. Bain admitted to failures, conceding that the awarding of the contract had been irregular, and that its former partner Vittorio Massone had prior knowledge of Moyane’s appointment.
Ramaphosa said he had every confidence in Kieswetter, who had the "experience, integrity and skills required to turn Sars around" and restore
its credibility.
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