Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan has promised to meet with Sars commissioner Tom Moyane over an alleged hostage drama at Sars relating to an email linked to the charges against him.
Gordhan told MPs on Wednesday it was unacceptable behaviour by officials from the Hawks and Sars to demand information by holding a senior official hostage.
Gordhan was briefing the standing committee on finance on the medium term budget policy statement when DA MP David Maynier asked him about the hostage drama at Sars.
It was reported on Wednesday that the deputy director for law administration at Sars, Vlok Symington, was allegedly held hostage by members of the Hawks and Moyane’s bodyguard.
This was in relation to an email that was mistakenly sent to him to charge Gordhan.
Gordhan told Parliament this was a serious issue that needed to be addressed. He said he had not had a chance to talk to Moyane about it.
“I will ask Mr Moyane for an explanation as soon as I get a chance. If it is true, it’s unacceptable, totally unacceptable behaviour. But let us get the facts first, and we will take it from there,” he said.
Gordhan is expected to appear in the Pretoria Regional Court on Wednesday next week on a fraud charge for approving the early retirement of former Sars deputy commissioner Ivan Pillay.
This week, Helen Suzman Foundation director Francis Antonie filed supplementary affidavits in the high court in Pretoria stating that the government had approved early retirement for more than 3 000 public servants over the age of 60 between 2005 and 2010, and thus the charges against Gordhan were baseless.
Antonie noted that this was standard practice in the government.
He added that the National Prosecuting Authority had not sought this information.
The Helen Suzman Foundation and Freedom Under Law have applied for the permanent stay of prosecution for Gordhan.
They are arguing in the papers that the charges against the minister were baseless.
Maynier said it was unacceptable that nine days after the incident, Moyane had not taken action or informed Gordhan.
Moyane reports to the minister of finance on the functions of the entity.
African Christian Demo- cratic Party leader Kenneth Meshoe said the reports were disturbing.
It was unacceptable that law enforcement agencies were using physical threats in order to obtain the information they wanted, he added.
Meshoe said the ACDP would lodge a complaint with the Independent Police Investigative Directorate over the conduct of the law enforcement officers.
He said the incident dem- onstrated the political nature of the charges against Gordhan.
Ipid spokesperson Moses Dlamini confirmed yesterday that the matter had been reported to them by Symington this week.
A criminal complaint was also lodged with the police in Pretoria.
Sars spokesperson Sandile Memela had not responded to questions at the time of publication.