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- SARS Senior Manager Vlok Symington said meetings between SARS officials and the Hawks launched an attempt to remove the officials.
- Symington said the former acting SARS commissioner Mark Kingon He agreed that there had been attempts to sink it.
- He said SARS officials met with the Hawks and people from the NPA about the early retirement of former Deputy Commissioner Ivan Pillay.
The South African Revenue Service (SARS) executive for product oversight, Vlok Symington, on Thursday morning delivered to the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into State Capture an account of an earlier offer at the tax authority to evict him and engaging other employees.
He referred to an investigation into complaints he had with former SARS Commissioner Tom Moyane’s bodyguard Thabo Titi, which at the time were investigated by Thipe Mothle of Mothle Jooma Sabdia Attorneys.
Symington alleges that he was held hostage at the SARS offices in Pretoria by members of Hawks and Titi in 2016. The incident involved alleged attempts to coerce Symington into delivering an email related to the early retirement of former Deputy Commissioner Ivan Pillay.
The investigation report confirmed Symington’s concerns, but an addendum was added to the report that established disciplinary action and set it in motion.
Testing leader Alistair Franklin asked Symington if he consulted with other SARS employees when preparing his affidavit for the commission, including senior employees, to which Symington said “yes.”
Symington said he took every other witness affidavit and responded to it, including a response to the affidavit from Mothle, the attorney who investigated Symington’s complaint against Titi.
Franklin asked Symington if the contents of the report’s appendix were intended to frame him, and Symington began to unravel the course of events.
“Initially, SARS informed me that Mr. Mothle would be appointed to investigate my complaint against Mr. Titi. He made it very clear to me the scope of the email investigations … it will focus on the complaint I filed.”
“On that basis, Mr. Mothle prepared a report in 2017 and delivered it to me on May 11. In fact, the report examined my grievance, investigated it, interviewed me extensively, interviewed Mr. Titi more than once. report concluded that my grievance was in fact valid, “Symington said.
Pressed to change the result
Symington said behind-the-scenes investigations, which he and other officials learned about via email, found that a meeting was held between representatives of SARS and Mothle where SARS pressured Mothle to change the outcome of his report.
Symington said Mothle proceeded to execute this as per requests from SARS officials. He said Mothle appeared to express hesitation in exonerating Titi and recommending disciplinary charges against Symington.
“No one measured any complaints or grievances against me, but that became the result. That led me to the conclusion that there was only one reason the addition to the report was requested, and it was to get me out of SARS,” Symington saying.
Symington said former acting SARS commissioner Mark Kingon agreed with the view that the addendum to the report was made to get rid of Symington.
Symington said the Hawks must have had some engagement with SARS legal counsel David Maphakela on the issue of Pillay’s early retirement.
“There must be something that made the Hawks think they should write to Maphakela and my suspicion is that it came from the meeting where he shared his views and it just so happened that a member of the NPA was also at that meeting.” . Symington said.
The commission will resume in the afternoon, when Zondo says he intends to address lawyer Dali Mpofu’s outburst on Tuesday while questioning Public Enterprise Minister Pravin Gordhan.
