Cape Town – The Democratic Alliance on Sunday called for Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene and SA Revenue Service (Sars) Commissioner Tom Monyane to appear before Parliament’s finance committee regarding the rogue Sars “spy unit” report.
“The Sunday Times has now let the Sars rogue spy unit cat out of the bag despite the considerable efforts on the part of the Sars Commissioner Tom Monyane to deflect attempts by the DA to have the [KPMG] report [on the matter] tabled for consideration by the standing committee on finance,” DA spokesman Alf Lees said in a statement.
“Monyane did this by obfuscating that the report was a draft report, that it had been referred to the minister of finance, and that it bizarrely did not form part of the Sarsmandate despite having been commissioned by Monyane himself.”
Given these latest revelations, the DA would ask committee chairman Yunus Carrim to summon Nene and Monyane to appear before the committee before the end of November to brief the committee on the KPMG report, as well as to take unrestricted questions from members of the committee.
Lees said the newspaper report alleged that the rogue Sars spy unit operated outside normal controls, protocols, and oversight; its agents were referred to as “ghost employees”; and unlawfully monitored, recorded, and transcribed proceedings at National Prosecuting Authority offices as instructed by former Sars deputy commissioner Ivan Pillay.
“The attempts by the chair of the joint standing committee on intelligence Ms Connie September to make the report and the Sars rogue spy unit an intelligence matter – as well as the reported attempt by Deputy Finance Minister Mcebisi Jonas to have the report classified as ‘top secret’ – can logically be concluded to be attempts to protect certain highly placed cadres from further investigation and prosecution.”
This was reinforced by the report that Jonas instructed that the KPMG report be “sanitised” to remove all blame from any individuals.
“There is undoubtedly an urgent need to fully and publicly investigate the role played in the Sars rogue spy unit by the finance minister and Sars commissioner, as well as the full operations of the unit. The integrity of Sars must be restored in order to protect its ability to competently collect revenue,” Lees said. – African News Agency (ANA)