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Pretoria - The state is being deliberately weakened so that outside forces can take control and make financial gains, former GCIS CEO Themba Maseko has claimed.
“It’s not a coincidence that today if you check positions in government, the number of acting positions with no permanent heads running those institutions - the state is literally being weakened,” he said during the launch of a book entitled Rogue: The inside story of SARS’s elite crime-busting unit by former employees Johan Van Loggerenberg and Adrian Lackay.
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“The reason is so that these forces can do as they please because when the state is weak they appoint people who will do as they please in order for them to achieve their objectives.”
He said SARS was plunged into turmoil and people removed out of the way to assist the agenda of certain individuals.
“SARS was one of the best-run state institutions in the country - the best tax collector and were dealing with one of the most sophisticated syndicates, the cigarette syndicate and they cracked that case. As they were cracking it, it was discovered that one of the family members of a politician is a shareholder in one of the companies implicated,” he said.
Maseko added that SARS was also dealing with very powerful people who were dodging taxes in the country.
“You start understanding why SARS becomes a target for them because these forces outside of government are seeing a state institution that is becoming a threat to their economic interests.
"It’s not a coincidence that you have an NPA that behaves the way it does today, [and] it’s not a coincidence that you have the Hawks behaving the way they do. You are dealing with forces that have unlimited resources,” he said.
Maseko said it was pivotal for South Africans to stand up and fight to protect their institutions at all costs.
