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Public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane.
- The EFF has rejected the Gauteng High Court ruling that found public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane to be biased in her investigation of the so-called “rogue unit” of SARS.
- The party says it will appeal the judgment and has written to Permanent Joint Intelligence Commission of Parliament to initiate its own investigation.
- SARS said the sentence confirmed the “powers of the tax service to collect information related to tax crimes.”
Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) says the Gauteng High Court ruling annulling public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s report on the so-called rogue SARS unit is “irrational, unconstitutional and above all a threat to national security.”
The party has rejected the ruling, saying it will appeal it to the highest court in the country.
On Monday, News24 reported that the court issued a punitive cost order against Mkhwebane, describing his conduct as “egregious.”
Mkhwebane discovered that former SARS commissioner, now Minister of Public Enterprises, Pravin Gordhan, had inadvertently misled Parliament by not disclosing a meeting he had with members of the Gupta family, and that he had violated intelligence laws by overseeing the establishment of an “intelligence unit” in SARS in 2007, also known as the “rogue unit”.
The court found that Mkhwebane relied on “discredited” reports to formulate his conclusions and that he displayed a “manifest bias” towards Gordhan and former SARS executive Ivan Pillay.
But the EFF said that no one in the country, acting on behalf of the democratic government, could collect covert intelligence without being held accountable by legislation and Parliament.
“The entire executive is accountable to Parliament. Even SARS itself is accountable to Parliament.”
I had many questions about the functioning and functioning of the SARS investigation unit.
The EFF said it had also written to Parliament’s Joint Standing Intelligence Committee to initiate its own investigation into the unit, claiming, without evidence, that it believed that “SARS collected covert intelligence, using intrusive equipment purchased with state funds.”
SARS said the Superior Court ruling confirmed the “powers of the tax service to collect information related to tax crimes.”
FULL COVERAGE | Inside the harsh ruling against Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s SARS report
The SARS unit, known as the “rogue unit,” was actually an investigative unit within the compliance division of the tax service established in 2007.
Over time, it became known as the Special Projects Unit, then the National Research Group and at the time of its dissolution in 2014, the High Risk Research Unit.
The unit was charged in 2014 and 2015 with conducting a series of illegal intelligence-gathering operations, including placing eavesdropping devices at former President Jacob Zuma’s home and conducting covert operations.
The Sunday Times newspaper apologized for the reports, and the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria, on December 7, 2020, ruled that no evidence of covert intelligence methods used by the unit was found in 81 investigations it conducted into illicit economies.
The members and managers of the unit have consistently maintained their innocence.
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