Parliament - The stand-off over an investigation into the work of an alleged “rogue” intelligence unit in the SA Revenue Service has now spilled over into the cabinet, with Minister of Police Nathi Nhleko and Minister of State Security David Mahlobo coming out in defence of the probe.
This came as Minister of Finance Pravin Gordhan, to whom the Hawks sent a list of 27 questions on the matter days before he delivered last week’s Budget speech, informed the unit’s head through his lawyers that he would not meet the deadline of 4pm on Wednesday to respond to them.
Gordhan told Hawks boss Berning Ntlemeza he should have been aware that he was busy preparing the Budget speech at the time he was sent the questions and “of the national importance of the Budget speech, and that he was not able to permit any distractions to jeopardise the Budget processes”.
Gordhan said he would respond in due course, when he had “ascertained what information, of the information you request, he is able to provide”.
Nhleko insisted on Wednesday that the investigation was nothing new as it arose from a complaint lodged by Sars commissioner Tom Moyane in May last year, based on the alleged confessions of members of the unit.
He said the Hawks were investigating the existence of the unit and it was an “ordinary exercise to send questions to people who could have been there or may have been there at the time when some of these activities were taking place”.
He argued it was unreasonable to ask what charges were being investigated and in terms of what legislation because this would be determined as an outcome of the process, not at the start.
He said the Hawks had yet to determine whether the establishment of the unit was done in accordance with a cabinet decision, as Gordhan has insisted it was.
However, President Jacob Zuma has scoffed at these suggestions as “gossip and rumour” and Nhleko argued that the questions were the outcome of a continuing investigation and said law enforcement agencies could not concern themselves with the question of timing.
“If as a country we were to reach such a stage then we are heading for trouble,” Nhleko said.
He listed items purchased by an individual originally from the unit, who was redeployed to the Anti-Corruption and Security Unit, which he said had been used to spy on Sars staff.
However, reports at the time Moyane laid the complaint said it related to the use of surveillance equipment to spy on then National Director of Public Prosecutions Vusi Pikoli at the time of the investigation into then police commissioner Jackie Selebi.
The items listed by Nhleko, including a signal jammer, a telephone and line analyser and a “Fluke aircheck wi-fi tester”, among others, were bought only from July 2009 onwards, long after Pikoli had left the job.
It is also unclear whether it was unlawful for Sars to own such equipment.
Former Sars spokesman Adrian Lackay, in a submission to Parliament, has said Sars possessed only equipment that an ordinary private investigator would also have access to. However, Mahlobo said the inspector-general of intelligence had submitted a report confirming that Sars had operated an intelligence capability.
Political Bureau