President Cyril Ramaphosa has missed Friday’s 12’o clock deadline to respond to former South African Revenue Service (Sars) Commissioner Tom Moyane‘s demand to have his dismissal withdrawn. Earlier this week, Moyane wrote to the president asking him to withdraw his dismissal or continue to have him under suspension with pay.
Ramaphosa fired Moyane last week following the recommendations of the Nugent Commission of Inquiry. The commission, which has been probing financial misconduct at the revenue service, placed the failures at the institution squarely on the shoulders of the Moyane.
Moyane had also approached the Constitutional Court to have the Nugent inquiry declared unlawful.
“My anticipation is that the president will not respond to that, simply because he will see this as a matter that’s long run its course. Mr Moyane is no longer an employee of the state and if he wants to force or compel the president to do particular things, he probably has to do it through court processes, so I do not expect him to respond positively to this one. Also the bigger problem here is that this really plays into the president’s defence, where he keeps saying that the relationship between the state, Sars and mine has broken down,” says Economic Analyst and Chartered Accountant Khaya Sithole.
