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Two more senior managers leave SARS, DA claims

Cape Town – The resignation of two SA Revenue Service (SARS) executives this week is further evidence of a concerning brain drain at the tax entity, with 41 senior skilled staff having now left since Tom Moyane was appointed commissioner in 2014.

The resignation of head of strategic portfolio management George Frost and head of enterprise quality management James Matthews was revealed by Democratic Alliance MP Alf Lees on Monday.

SARS was asked to confirm the resignations on Monday and Fin24 will update this story as soon as it responds.

Huffington Post SA associate editor Ferial Haffajee reported this month that there is evidence that SARS is weakening as an institution.

“While Moyane denied a brain drain at SARS, the institution has lost 39 senior managers since Moyane was appointed commissioner in September 2014 - 21 new senior managers had been hired, but of them none had tax experience,” she reported.

The latest resignations would take this figure up to 41.

“Almost none of Sars executive committee have tax experience. The one person with experience has been on suspension for six months after being captured on camera stuffing R1.2m in untraceable cash into different ATM's.

“SARS executive Jonas Makwakwa was the only member of Moyane's exco who had tax experience but he is now suspended and a SARS investigation has been running on the matter for six months and counting.”

What SARS is now losing

Lees, deputy shadow minister of finance, told Fin24 on Monday that the DA will submit parliamentary questions to Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba to establish the full extent of the exodus of senior staff members at SARS.

“This, after the DA learned that two more skilled and long serving SARS executive members, George Frost and James Matthews, have reportedly submitted their resignations this week.”

According to Lees, the number reported by Huffington Post could be higher, as he said their “resignations will bring the number of reported losses of senior skilled staff at SARS, since the appointment of Tom Moyane as SARS Commissioner a mere two and a half years ago, to 56”.

LinkedIn shows that Frost has been with SARS for nearly 10 years, while Matthews has been there for nearly nine years.

“George Frost was said to be responsible for rolling out the new offices and James Matthews is a process engineer who has apparently been responsible for most of the modernised and efficient SARS processes.

“Not only are both of these senior SARS executives highly skilled in the technical aspects of SARS, but they both apparently had in the region of 10 years’ service each with SARS.”

Brain drain despite Moyane's assurances

Days after Moyane said that the outflow of experienced officials at the revenue service was a myth, an audit manager with more than 20 years’ experience left, News24 reported on 1 March.

Senior audit manager Lorraine van Esch resigned in February. She was the audit manager responsible for some of the biggest, high profile tax cases in the last few years.

READ: Latest senior manager leaves SARS

Among the cases she was in charge of were audits against Zuma family-linked company Mpisi Trading, mega-rich billionaire tenderpreneurs the Mpisanes, EFF leader Julius Malema, investor fraudster Gary van der Merwe, and the Prasa tax audit.

The resignations come as City Press reported that SARS could miss its next revenue target by R53bn in a worst case scenario.

In the year to March 2017, Sars collected R1.144 trillion, which was R30 billion below the 2016 budget speech forecast.

READ: Revenue service could miss by billions

For the year to March 2018, Sars is looking to collect R1.266 trillion in revenue, which is an increase of 10.5% or R122 billion relative to the tax revenue collected in the year to March 2017.

“It should be cautioned that this strong revenue growth outlook for the next financial year was developed when a more rapid economic recovery – than what is currently the case – was anticipated,” Sars warned earlier this month.

Gigaba must reveal true extent of brain drain - DA

Lees wants Gigaba to account for the losses at SARS and answer exactly how many new staff members SARS have lost, what their responsibilities were, their SARS length of service, how many new employees have been appointed to replace those who left, their work experience prior to SARS, and their qualifications.

“Despite the assurances by Moyane that the senior staff have been replaced, the fact remains that none of the replacements have the skills and experience of those leaving.

“If not properly trained and adequately qualified, the new appointments will simply not be able to fully maintain the operations and continual modernisation that is required for SARS to remain a world class tax collection agency that is desperately needed in South Africa today.

“Whilst President Zuma and the ANC are busy wrecking the South African economy, it is vital that the National Treasury and SARS remain the efficient organs of State that they are and who rank amongst the best in the world,” said Lees.

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