AMIL UMRAW: How Moyane laid the groundwork for the collapse of SARS e-filing
'Moyane appointed global consultancy Gartner to assess SARS’s IT system and strategy – which came at a cost of about R200m'
EXTRACT
On Monday, testimony from senior executives at the revenue service showed how years of work to modernise processes at SARS was put at risk under Moyane.
Rabie said Gartner, in carrying out their assessment, had only consulted him and his team through assessments and questionnaires, which were “not necessarily detailed”.
“What suddenly started to happen is our support functions started to run autonomously and it was centralised. There was no consideration for the digitised specific requirements. Effectively, infrastructure is far behind ... It’s pointing to the imminent collapse of the digital infrastructure at Sars,” Rabie said.
“One of the things is that modernisation was stopped. In the world of technology if you lose years you typically have to restart.”
The South African Revenue Service’s e-filing system is at risk of collapsing in the next two years, as a direct result of a decision made by suspended commissioner Tom Moyane in 2014. This is according to SARS acting group executive for IT strategy and architecture Andre Rabie‚ who was testifying at the commission of inquiry into tax administration and governance at the revenue service on Monday. He told Judge Robert Nugent, who is heading the inquiry, that SARS’s digital infrastructure is unstable following the halting of a modernisation programme at the revenue service four years ago. The modernisation project was well on track, but was dealt a blow when Moyane, with the help of a global consultancy firm, took office in 2014. Rabie said an infrastructure collapse was imminent. Asked what needed to be done to fix the problem, he replied: “First we need to stabilise the technology platform in general. We need a procurement vehicle where people know what they are doing. There are lot...
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