Former SA Revenue Service (Sars) commissioner Ivan Pillay has joined public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan’s court applications to set aside the public protector’s “rogue unit” report.
Gordhan’s applications are divided into two parts and were lodged at the Pretoria high court on Wednesday. The first part wants public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s remedial orders on the establishment of the so-called rogue unit at Sars to be suspended until the review of the report has been concluded.
It also seeks to interdict the office of the public protector from enforcing the remedial orders once the review process is finished.
The second part of Gordhan’s application wants the court to review and set aside the report and have it declared unlawful, unconstitutional, irrational and invalid.
Mkhwebane recently found that the establishment of the Sars investigative unit — labelled as a rogue unit by detractors — was unlawful and that Gordhan, who was Sars commissioner at the time, violated the constitution by authorising its formation.
In her remedial action, she directed President Cyril Ramaphosa to take disciplinary action against Gordhan and directed the national police commissioner to investigate his conduct and that of other officials involved in the unit.
On Monday, Pillay, through a statement from his lawyers, said he had been advised that his rights had been “adversely affected by the reasons and findings contained in the report”.
“My rights are furthermore directly impugned by various aspects of the remedial action decreed by the public protector in the report,” he stated in the affidavit.
Pillay said: “I do not oppose the relief sought by minister Gordhan ... Indeed, I fully support the relief sought by him.”
He supports Gordhan’s application because Mkhwebane’s report “implicates me in wrongdoing, maladministration and criminality”.
“In the course of the report the public protector has found that Sars, under my guidance and management as general manager: enforcement and risk division, established an intelligence unit in violation of SA intelligence prescripts,” wrote Pillay.
Mkhwebane has said she will defend her report, saying: “It is our considered opinion that the emotive language and personal insults and blatant lies or innuendos are meant to divert attention from the real issues and the findings.”
The public protector said that she would comment only on the facts of the matter, adding that engaging with personal insults was “below the dignity” of the high offices of responsibility she and Gordhan occupied.
Mkhwebane is under intense scrutiny following recent court decisions to set aside some of her reports. There has also been speculation that she is using her office to fight factional battles within the ANC.
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