The Sheriff, aka Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana (central) is flanked by his posse (right) Lesetja Kganyago and (left) SA Revenue Service Commissioner Edward Kieswetter. Photo: Supplied
In November, 2021 the new Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana said he was “the new sheriff in town, and he would tackle the outlaws”.
In February 2022, proclaimed that the time had come to round up the posse to take down South Africa’s criminals.
In February 2023 he reported slow but steady progress in rounding up the criminals, which is why since taking the helm of South Africa’s public finances he has empowered law enforcement by increasing their budget allocations.
Riding at his side to combat the wild west of South Africa’s dodgy dealings, came his posse: Team Treasury, the South African Revenue Service (Sars), the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), and also the big guns – the extended help from international agencies such as Interpol and tax authorities from around the world.
The template for this international posse pursuing outlaws in various jurisdictions was the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal, which was a large corruption, bribery and money laundering scandal, that began in 2009 in Malaysia, but became global in scope and was exposed in 2015.
In South Africa, the underbelly of that beast is called “state capture” which began in 2009, reared its ugly head and was exposed in 2016, showing the country that the cookie jar was nearly empty. Since then the citizens of our good country have born witness to the Zondo Commission of Inquiry, with the dulcet tones of Chief Justice Raymond Zondo probing all types of maleficence.
For four years the Zondo Commission heard evidence on state capture, the bags of cash from members of the Gupta family with tales of whiskey and undercover dealings. Zondo has since handed in reports detailing with how state capture took place with the assistance of several auditing and consultancy companies.
Edward Kieswetter, the Sars commissioner who sat on the same podium as Godongwana at the media briefing before the Budget, said several investigations were ongoing, the details of which he could not share with the media.
But he did say that R3 billion had been recovered and several more billions were subject to preservation orders. In terms of individual taxpayers, he said 94 cases had been prosecuted and Sars had achieved a 97.8% conviction rate. Kieswetter said it took time to prepare the cases and he did not want to rush the process in case the outlaws got off on a technicality.
“Our high conviction rate shows that our approach is effective,” he said.
Click here to view Business Report’s full coverage of the budget speech.
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