South African Revenue Service Commissioner Edward Kieswetter on Thursday said that personal protective equipment tenders worth over R1 billion were awarded to politically compromised individuals.
Kieswetter had previously informed the Parliament’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts of irregular dealings taking place in the procurement of goods and services during the national state of disaster.
In an update issued yesterday to the South African National Editors’ Forum, he said that the SARS audit found abuse of the system with pubs, car washing businesses, bakeries and events companies awarded contracts.
Kieswetter said that about 22 companies linked to politically exposed individuals managed to score tenders.
Kieswetter said that investigations continued but noted that SARS was facing an uphill battle.
“Currently we are resource-constrained and we do need to increase our audit capacity, our criminal investigation capacity, our forensic audit capacity, our customs area, financial structuring – so these are areas that we desperately need to have more money so that we can have a better response,” Kieswetter said.
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