Kieswetter reflects on 7 years at SARS: 'Institutional integrity has been restored'

After seven impactful years at the helm of the South African Revenue Service (SARS), outgoing Commissioner Edward Kieswetter confidently reflected on his legacy, stating that he’s leaving behind an agency that is not only stronger but also more trusted by the public.

Kieswetter, who was appointed after the challenging tenure of Tom Moyane, stated that SARS has played a crucial role in restoring public confidence in the tax system and reinforcing what he refers to as the "social compact" between citizens and the government.

He emphasised significant improvements in tax compliance and institutional performance, noting that trust in SARS has increased considerably and that service delivery metrics have improved significantly.

"When you pay your taxes, as a citizen of a country, and in our case, a democratic republic, you have an expectation, a legitimate expectation, that the government would deliver social goods and services. You, in a way, have the right to be disenchanted by those service delivery failures or when it doesn't meet the expectations; that's when trust declines, as we saw seven years ago.

"What I am therefore very pleased with is that the total compact between taxpayers and government through its representatives, the tax administration, has increased from 48% to 75%. Now, that's not where we need to be; we need to continue to build on that and expand that to other areas of government. But that begins to give you an expression of a social compact that is in repair.

"Public institutions exist to serve society, and we measure that service meticulously; that has gone from 54% to now over 90%; very hard measures, and that's what gives me the confidence. Of course, we focus on two trillion, we focus on big numbers, but for me, the real achievement is that institutional integrity has been restored. Our employees are now more engaged than they were seven years ago.

"The social compact has been substantially restored, and that shows in the trust and the service that we give to South Africans."

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Kieswetter also pointed to SARS’ role in funding key social support measures, including during the COVID-19 pandemic.

He cautioned that South Africa still faces major structural challenges, particularly around the allocation and spending of public funds and the fight against organised crime.

"In business, we talk about the business case, the return on investment. Often, we are not sufficiently clear about the return on investment, and we allocate expenditure in a way that does not necessarily guarantee a positive return, either financially or socially.

"I believe there's a high degree of allocation refinement that we can do. Once you've allocated money, it's the quality of that spend, and that requires competent leadership, institutional integrity that converts input costs into measurable, hard, tangible outcomes, and those are two areas, I think, that are currently not as connected to the revenue income, and so that's an area of refinement I would respectfully submit."

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Kieswetter said government departments must work more collaboratively to effectively tackle illicit financial flows, warning that siloed approaches are weakening the country’s response.

"You cannot have a transactional response where each of the agencies, and there are about five or six agencies that look at enforcing, investigating, and prosecuting crime, each of us working separately, thinking that we will be able to put together a defendable opposition to dismantle organised crime.

"Very often, there's a reason why it's called organised crime. They are better organised, better resourced, and they don't have to work within the confines of the law, as we have to. We have to be better organised… a more systemic approach. Once you snuff out the money that feeds crime, you can begin to deal with this monster.”

Dr Ngobani Johnstone Makhubu will succeed Kieswetter on 1 May.