There’s no quick fix for South Africa’s hobbled tax agency
Picture: Oupa Mokoena/African News Agency (ANA)
JOHANNESBURG – The new head of South Africa’s tax agency says rebuilding the organization will be a long haul after management was “dismantled” and it lost public trust.
“In the five months I’ve been there we’ve done a significant amount of work, but it’s not a one-trick pony — it’s a multi-dimensional, multifaceted piece of work,” South African Revenue Service Commissioner Edward Kieswetter said in an interview at Bloomberg’s Johannesburg office Thursday.
Kieswetter, who took over as head on May 1, inherited an institution that suffered “massive failure of governance and integrity” after the appointment of former head Tom Moyane in 2014, a commission that probed problems at the body found. SARS had a climate “characterized by fear and intimidation, with compliant managers that felt they were under a command-and-control structure,” and unwittingly or unconsciously carried out work that didn’t serve the organization, the new head said.
Source: iol.co.za