Former SA Revenue Service (Sars) commissioner Tom Moyane will finally be given a chance finally to cross-examine Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan at the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture.
It is expected that Moyane’s legal representative, Advocate Dali Mpofu, will lead the cross-examination, which is due to take place as part of the inquiry’s evening session. Details of the session were revealed by the commission on Monday.
Moyane applied to cross-examine Gordhan following his testimony in 2018.
Gordhan appeared at the inquiry in 2018 and implicated Moyane in his testimony. He accused Moyane of acting to serve the state capture agenda when he opened a criminal case against him regarding the establishment of the Sars “rogue unit”.
Moyane and Gordhan have had a long legal history of disputes and disagreements which has culminated in Moyane’s application to question Gordhan at the inquiry. When this was granted, Zondo indicated that a limited time frame would be set for questions and the former commissioner would be bound to ask specific questions related to Gordhan’s testimony.
Gordhan was due to face questions from Moyane in August last year, but he applied for the session to be postponed as he had Cabinet matters to attend to.
This request was not received kindly by Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, the chairperson of the inquiry, who was said he had been assured by President Cyril Ramaphosa that ministers would be required to take requests to appear at the inquiry seriously.
“Mere Cabinet appointments on their own cannot be more important than appearing at the commission. There needs to be something more than Cabinet commitments. They are like work. If everyone says they have commitments, then the commission would not be able to complete its work. The president has told me that whenever anyone is required to co-operate with the commission, they have to co-operate,” Justice Zondo said.
POLITICAL BUREAU