Statement on the fiasco involving the SARS Commissioner, KPMG and Guptas
19 September 2017
Yesterday’s opportunistic attack on KPMG for all of the wrong reasons by the SARS Commissioner, Tom Moyane, underlines the fact that if there has been state capture by corporate interests, there has also been the active perversion of private corporate activities by corrupt elements from within the state. It is common knowledge that Moyane relied on the KPMG “rogue unit” report to engineer the dismissal of key SARS personnel dealing with sensitive matters related to state capture. It is also evident that the “findings” of the KPMG report were in fact predetermined by instructions from within SARS. KPMG has now, quite correctly, disavowed these “findings”, while Moyane, instead of getting to the bottom of who in SARS pushed KPMG in this direction, defends these concocted “findings”.
Equally problematic with yesterday’s SARS press conference was the presence of ANC MP and SCOPA member, Nyamazeli Booi. How on earth does he justify his presence, clearly in support of the SARS commissioner, when SCOPA is (or should be) actively over-sighting both KPMG and SARS itself? Booi’s zealous defence of the line taken by Moyane will inevitably lead to a public impression that he too is complicit in a cover-up.
None of this is to suggest that KPMG’s own conduct has not been absolutely deplorable. KPMG’s apologies, firing of six of its top South African management, and its disavowal of the findings in the “rogue unit” report are all far too little, and too late. Not only has their role resulted in the destruction of the careers of honest and patriotic public servants, but it has deprived one of the best performing public institutions of professional capacity with all of the damaging impact that this will have on public resources.
What must happen to the Guptas must also happen to KPMG with equal force