Inside the Sars rogue unit
Former Sars officials say the so-called ‘rogue unit’ was the cheapest law enforcement entity among all anti-fraud units within the taxman.
|||Pretoria - The so-called “rogue unit” at the South African Revenue Service (Sars) was the cheapest law enforcement entity among all anti-fraud units within the taxman.
So say Johann van Loggerenberg and Adrian Lackay, former Sars senior officials and co-authors of Rogue: The Inside Story of Sars’ Elite Crime-busting Unit.
They were speaking during the Pretoria launch of the book last Thursday night, attended by, among others, former government spokesman Themba Maseko.
Van Loggerenberg said: “My story is a simple one. It is a story of 26 public servants who started doing work for a unit around March 2007 at Sars and functioned until around mid-October 2014.
“They were the cheapest law enforcement unit among all the fraud units within the revenue service.”
Rogue tells the story of those people and ultimately the 55 people who left Sars in the wake of a series of stories published by the Sunday Times, he explained. There were 39 articles in total.
Van Loggerenberg said the 26 largely focused on organised crime and helped Sars to bring big criminals to book. Nobody really knew about them, primarily for the safety of these officials, he said. They reported to him as the then group executive.
“We were just doing our work and then suddenly it started on October 12 of that year with the first headline in the Sunday Times saying that this unit broke into President Jacob Zuma’s home in Forest Town and planted devices to listen to his conversations. And suddenly you heard the unit also operated a brothel,” he said.
Then there was a story that the unit had R540 million secret slush fund to buy sophisticated spy equipment to intercept taxpayers’ communication, he said.
“None of that is true. This book tells you what journalists who spread all those lies should have asked,” he claimed.
Lackay, a former Sars spokesman, said the book described the history of the institution, which was formed to be an autonomous revenue collection service.
He said: “We were proud to play our role in the development of this country, but all of that changed in October 2014 when this character called Tom Moyane was appointed by Zuma as the Sars commissioner.
“Mr Pityana (Save South Africa convener and guest speaker at the launch Sipho Pityana) you had so many names for Mr Moyane, but unfortunately I cannot repeat the same because I am already facing a R12m lawsuit for defamation.”
He said that despite the retractions of stories by the Sunday Times earlier this year, it was unfortunate the Hawks and National Prosecuting Authority still insisted on charging people in connection with the unit.
Earlier, Pityana warned those hell-bent on taking over the country through corrupt means. “If they want to take over our country, they would have to run us over first,” said the chairman of AngloGold Ashanti.
“I also belong to a rogue unit called the Black Business Council and when I called for the president to step down they said to me you can’t say that because he is black. If blackness is epitomised by what Zuma is, then I am very happy to be white,” he said to the applause of the audience.
Pityana described Zuma as the worst president ever and commander-in-chief of corruption in the nation. “Our key focus is to rid South Africa of Zuma,” he said.
He told the audience they must be part of the campaign to outlaw looting, theft and abuse of power. “We must stop the Zuma nightmare,” he said.
It was important for South Africans to remember that Sars used to be one of the most efficient organisations in the world which embodied the spirit of professionalism.
“Today Lehae la Sars (Sars headquarters in Brooklyn) is a home of shame and its leader Moyane is emerging as a key player in State capture corruption.”
He said it was unequivocally clear that Moyane was a problem. “Because he is a problem he must leave the institution and go to jail. He was alleged to be a key player in the Gupta wedding; something of a wedding planner, I think.”
He said the book was one example of how people can address problems in the country.
Pityana hailed Lackay and Van Loggerenberg as more than just authors of the book.
“They are brave and noble people,” he said and stated the book was a handbook of how state capture worked.
“It is a warning that all of us must heed about the role of journalists and politicians in the country,” he said.
rapula.moatshe@inl.co.za
Pretoria News