Parliament – Yunus Carrim, the chairman of Parliament’s standing committee on finance, on Tuesday issued a blunt call to President Jacob Zuma, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan and tax commissioner Tom Moyane to resolve a tug of war over a new operating model for the South African Revenue Service and other issues.
“If there is one message that is coming out here, it is get your damned act together. You know what? We are fed up, with the minister, with the commissioner, with you, everybody, right. And don’t blame apartheid for this,” Carrim said to laughter from MPs who had expressed concern over the impact of the acrimony on the economy.
“It is one government and one ANC, at least in a limited sense it is one ANC. Don’t jump us with your problem,” Carrim said, adding that the committee would urge a meeting between President Jacob Zuma, the leader of government business – Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa – Gordhan and Moyane.
“Sort this thing out. The crucial people are the commissioner, the minister, the deputy president, the president, and the ANC office, to the extent it is relevant. We are fed up, is what we are communicating to you. We cannot afford this thing, this impasse. When you come back in August, we are going to get very tough on that matter.”
The remarks followed a briefing by Moyane and finance director-general Lungisa Fuzile on the quarterly reports of SARS and the National Treasury, which saw MPs from the opposition and the ANC asked about the hostile relationship between Gordhan and Moyane.
Carrim noted that he was only co-addressing the call to Fuzile because he was at the meeting representing National Treasury.
Moyane refused to comment on the tension, which frequently generates press headlines, but said the new operating model had been approved by former finance minister Nhlanhla Nene, and that he had submitted the revenue service’s strategic plans for the current financial year to the minister in March, well ahead of deadline.
Answering questions from MPs, he said he was not necessarily opposed to plans to create a new border control agency but would not countenance the “balkanisation” of SARS, noting that 20 percent of its revenue collection was done by national customs.
Fuzile confined himself to saying it would be preferable if there were no outside factors hampering economic recovery, but that in a real world these existed though not all were rational.
“The thing called confidence gets impacted by very many things, some we would say are concrete but others, they aren’t. In a situation like we are in, you would prefer that everything would be perfect, so that you don’t have questions about whether something is impacting negatively or otherwise on confidence,” he said.
“You would have seen the president working with the minister, the rest of Cabinet trying to make sure that we can support confidence in our economy so that investors can put more money in here because they believe in the future of the country because everyone seems to be working to a better future.”
Carrim’s call comes two days after the Sunday Times reported that Gordhan’s arrest on charges related to alleged abuses by an intelligence unit within SARS — whom Moyane maintains went “rogue” — was imminent. It was swiftly denied by Zuma’s office, but Gordhan has been seen as a political target since he was brought back to the finance portfolio in December.
It emerged shortly after Gordhan delivered the 2016 budget in February that days earlier he had been sent a list of questions relating to the intelligence unit, which he insists was established legally. This prompted ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe to say there was a plot to undermine Gordhan. The presidency also issued a denial on this occasion.
It is widely reported that Gordhan has asked Zuma replace Moyane but that the president is resisting this, and blocking plans by the minister to name a new board for the national airline that would exclude the controversial chairwoman Dudu Myeni, who is seen as close to Zuma.
African News Agency