Suspended South African Revenue Service (SARS) commissioner Tom Moyane is kicking up dust before facing highly damaging charges against him outlined in the notice of disciplinary inquiry he has received from President Cyril Ramaphosa.
SARS was among the first state institutions in which the state-capture project became evident, with Moyane at its centre. Where it all but began has to be a key part of where it ends.
Ramaphosa cannot afford to lose the battle against Moyane as state-capture beneficiaries still fighting off orange overalls could draw strength from it. As much as the boards of Eskom, Transnet, Denel and the Passenger Rail Agency of SA have been changed and the arduous process of restoring good governance begun, the beneficiaries of ill-gotten gains have yet to be brought to book.
Moyane is facing damning charges linked to his handling of the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) report on suspicious and unusual transactions in the bank account of his second-in-charge, Jonas Makwakwa.
Makwakwa has waltzed off the stage, with glaring unanswered questions remaining about the dodgy transactions and about how a company channelling money into his personal bank account, according to the FIC report, had been contracted as a debt collector by SARS.
Through his handling of the matter Moyane in effect let Makwakwa off the hook, hampering a PwC investigation of the transactions by denying access to Makwakwa’s laptop and cellphone as well as his personal bank accounts.
Another charge is that Moyane instructed a SARS employee to feign illness to avoid being interviewed by KPMG. The significance of this goes back to the multiple probes into the alleged rogue unit at the tax agency.
It was the KPMG report that first raised questions over Pravin Gordhan’s involvement in the alleged unit, a narrative now discredited after the audit firm withdrew sections of its report on the unit.
The SARS act is silent on the removal of a commissioner. Ramaphosa is largely in uncharted waters but for a Constitutional Court judgment on the removal of former director-general of the National Intelligence Agency Billy Masetlha
It is also the KPMG report that outed the alleged bugging of the National Prosecuting Authority offices by the unit in 2007. The key witness in the bugging case, dubbed Operation Sunday Evenings, Helgard Lombard, is the SARS official who was evidently instructed to feign illness.
Sunday Evenings is also at the heart of the charges faced by former SARS officials Ivan Pillay, Johann van Loggerenberg and Andries Janse van Rensburg. It is no coincidence then that the National Prosecuting Authority has "reviewed its decision not to prosecute Moyane".
Moyane faces the prospect of criminal charges.
In a letter to Ramaphosa, Moyane has challenged the rules and terms of reference of the inquiry, demanding that these be changed and the state pay his legal costs. Thrown in was also what seems an attempt to have Ramaphosa reconsider settlement conditions Moyane set out — including the payment of the remainder of his contract and bonuses "in respect of the trillions of rand which he has successfully and sterlingly collected in the past three financial years", as well as a jointly agreed "public statement of the parties".
Ramaphosa roundly rejected these terms, in effect indicating to Moyane that he has seen through his obfuscation and delaying tactics, synonymous with former president Jacob Zuma, who strategically appointed Moyane SARS commissioner. Moyane has a long-standing relationship with Zuma and his family, dating back to their time in exile.
The SARS act is silent on the removal of a commissioner. Ramaphosa is largely in uncharted waters but for a Constitutional Court judgment on the removal of former director-general of the National Intelligence Agency Billy Masetlha.
The chairwoman of the pending disciplinary inquiry against Moyane, former Constitutional Court justice Kate O’Regan, was party to that case and hence well placed to be an arbiter in the matter.
Moyane’s conduct is consistent with that while at SARS. He complained bitterly that he was being treated unfairly by Gordhan when the latter attempted to halt the far-reaching restructuring of the tax agency, work informed by consultants Bain and Gartner.
He threatened to take the auditor-general to court when questions were raised about bonus payments to senior executives without approval from the finance minister — again playing the victim. He also bucked against attempts by Parliament’s finance portfolio committee when it sought to get to the bottom of the Makwakwa matter, citing confidentiality.
Moyane’s instinct, like Zuma’s, has been to cry victim, when he failed to follow due process and the law. Ramaphosa sticking to process is proving to be Moyane’s undoing. He defends himself by kicking up dust, but when the dust settles Moyane is exposed, as Zuma was. His fate is tied to that of his political blesser.
• Marrian is political editor.
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