Speaking at a media engagement ahead of the State of the Nation (Sona) address on Wednesday, Minister in the Presidency Mondli Gungubele said the sixth administration is continuing to work hard to rebuild a competent South African Revenue Service (Sars) and further capacitate the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to bring perpetrators of State Capture and other forms of criminality to book.
He noted that, for about nine or 10 years, the country was subjected to looting. SARS lost 50 chartered accountants and all of its key units were destroyed.
“Sars was one of the top four best-performing state revenue institutions in the world. It was looted… and collapsed. Today Sars is one of the best up-and-coming institutions in the world because South Africans refused [to allow corruption].”
“The NPA was actually hollowed out, left to nothing. As we speak now, I cannot count the number of top criminal executives who were arrested and are now confronting prosecution to answer for themselves… whether political or private sector.”
Gungubele added that: “Sars has risen and the NPA has risen again. As we speak now, no less than R12.9bn has been frozen by the SIU [Special Investigating Unit]… No less than R8.6bn has been returned to the state from the thieves. We continue to put before the court a number of people who were responsible for this.”
He assured that although South Africa is going through a difficult period following democratisation. South Africans, Gungubele said, must come together and work with the government to find and implement solutions to some of the challenges.
“We are going through one of the most difficult patches in our country with the energy crisis [and] challenges of unemployment, especially by young people. But we’ve got an option to cry and feel miserable or an option to say, ‘this is our country, we will not allow it to go the direction that it may seem to be going’.”
The minister concluded by saying: “it’s only this code that can actually deal with the energy crisis. It’s only this code that can stop crime and ensure safety together. It is only this code that can make sure that our children live in a communally peaceful environment.”
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