Moyane continues with intimidation tactics

By launching a court action that appears to be without merit against Jacques Pauw, SARS Commissioner, Tom Moyane, is once again trying to execute the messenger instead of dealing with the substance of the revelations contained in “The President’s Keepers”.

There now seems to have been a change in tactics on the part of Tom Moyane and SARS. Up to now the tactic that was adopted when it came to difficult matters pertaining to sensitive persons, such as President Jacob Zuma and SARS senior Executive, Jonas Makwakwa, has been to hide behind taxpayer confidentiality. The new tactic seems to be one of intimidation to silence embarrassing revelations.

The SARS court application, under the hand of Tom Moyane, is clearly intended to intimidate any other South Africans from exposing matters of public interest. This view is confirmed by the recent letter written by Moyane to the Standing Committee on Finance wherein he takes issue with the excerpt from the FIC report on Jonas Makwakwa being provided to committee members. This manufactured outrage on the part of Tom Moyane despite the excerpt having been in the public domain and available on the internet for a considerable amount of time was clearly intimidatory.

There is nothing confidential about the massive R 145.2 million estimate of taxable fringe benefit that accrued to President Jacob Zuma when the State rebuilt his Nkandla residence. It cannot be illegal for Tom Moyane, SARS Commissioner, to issue a statement that confirms:

The value that SARS assessed the Nkandla fringe benefits at, the DA estimate was R 145.2 million;

That Jacob Zuma has paid the fringe benefits tax plus penalties and interest that should by now be in the region of R 65,0 million; and

That the funds used by Jacob Zuma to settle this huge tax bill were in their own right taxed correctly.

Unless SARS deals with this revelation as well as the many other revelations publicly and transparently, the reputation of senior SARS executives and consequently SARS itself will not be restored. This reputational damage will continue to have a negative impact on taxpayer morality and the consequent resistance of taxpayers to pay taxes due.

Statement issued by Alf Lees MP, DA Shadow Deputy Minister of Finance, 20 December 2017