Widespread distrust of the ANC has provoked a serious political crisis, says Ivan Pillay

Former SA Revenue Service (SARS) deputy commissioner Ivan Pillay says South Africa needs convincing politicians to protect the country’s institutions and requires civil society to hold politicians accountable while encouraging active citizenry.

“We will not let you damage our institutions the way you have damaged them. We see often that politicians are quick to attack institutions. We have to get consensus on this and civil society has a role to play in this,” said Pillay.

Pillay is a struggle stalwart who waged several battles at SARS during former president Jacob Zuma’s tenure. He has been vocal about the failed state of the nation for several years and, after honouring Helen Suzman at Tuesday’s memorial lecture, he detailed the challenges faced by the country and outlined possible solutions.

Crisis and recovery of democratic life

“I speak to you today as a mood of despondency over the political situation envelops a great many people in our country… many have disengaged from political involvement. Some… have emigrated, including significant numbers of black professionals. Others do not know what to do about their sense of powerlessness, disappointment and anger,” said Pillay.

“There is a political crisis that broadly comprises a distrust of the ANC, even among its followers, who, although they may vote for the organisation, do not believe or trust its promises,” said Pillay.

He said although the ANC no longer closely identified with the poor and the marginalised, “there is no other party that has won substantial trust.  Surveys show that the strongest two alternatives — the DA and EFF — also evoke significant levels of distrust. While other electoral alternatives have emerged, there is no evidence of a party that can win an election outright or obtain more votes than the ANC, or establish a stable coalition government.

“There is no party with a plan to address inequality, hunger, unemployment and the breakdown of basic services. No party can be relied on to provide the bare minimum of conditions for a decent life for all,” said Pillay.

The following is a lightly edited excerpt from Pillay’s speech.

We have to understand what has gone wrong and why

“In an efficient and effective institution, management identifies fraud and corruption, not necessarily because they are looking to unearth malfeasance, but because efficient management identifies out-of-norms activities. It is a normal task for the management to compare present performance with that of the past and compare performance among branches. The better institutions will even benchmark against national and international norms.

There are identifiable reasons why our governmental systems in South Africa are not sufficiently robust and susceptible to abuse and manipulation. Our public administration has a weak centre. To aggravate matters, we have had change after change, without a robust change-management plan, leading to fragile institutions and systems.

Some specific factors that impacted our public service

After 1994, many administrations were amalgamated. Overnight, that new public administration had to serve the whole of South Africa. The new dispensation included a new sphere of government including provincial parliaments, creating a complex governmental system.

The legislatures have failed to play their role in ensuring good governance.

The authority of the Public Service Commission is minimal. There was and is no effective centre for the public service. There isn’t an annual intake into the public service. Recruitment is, in the main, driven by individual vacancies and are not batched as part of a recruiting cycle. Such an approach makes it very difficult to plan recruitment and manage the careers of public servants.

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Among other things, it impacts negatively on selection processes, formal induction, institutionalising probation, the formal universal training of all entrants and the building of deep technical and managerial competence.

There is no system of managing the career paths of public servants across the three spheres of government (national, provincial and local). Persons recruited into one institution are there forever, causing artificial upward pressure. Many candidates are promoted beyond their capability. There is also pressure to move from one institution to another in search of better prospects, thus increasing instability.

The manner of appointing heads of institutions, managing their careers, the short duration of their contracts and the politicisation of their roles discourages capable candidates from entering the public service.

In line with the ‘New Public Management’ philosophy, our leaders and managers encouraged the contracting out of services without creating the capability to manage those contracts.

Ultimately, we have a bloated, inefficient and ineffective public service.

Managing risks in SARS

In South Africa, there is no shortage of information peddlers, corrupters, influencers and fixers. How do you blunt the impact that such people can have? The no-gifts policy, which was then well known, was only one part of many other measures adopted:

• We kept our lives simple. We avoided social and work situations where we knew there would be people who would try to take advantage of our presence. When meeting taxpayers, we did so at the office and were always accompanied by a fellow employee.


• A new operating model created dedicated front offices to interact with the public, thus insulating our processing and enforcement personnel who managed accounts, assessed tax liabilities and audited.


• There was an independently operated phone line to receive alerts about corruption. There was also a suspicious-activity reporting system that alerted us to fraud and corruption.


• All tax advisers had to be registered with SARS. Dedicated centres to service tax advisers were established.


• To avoid bias, auditors and investigators were not allowed to select or initiate cases. Case selection became an independent function.


• Access to taxpayer records was controlled, and we improved our technology systems so that any query would leave footprints.

At SARS, we sought to account to our principals by delivering on our mandate. Accordingly, we focused on ‘upfront’ governance by embedding and strengthening three lines of checks and balances into the institution, empowering individuals in authority and reducing the role of committees in decision making.

(We) developed rules and obligations according to whether a situation was usual, unusual or exceptional on a continuum that increased governance requirements.” DM/MC

The full lecture can be read here and viewed here.