Sars head of legal given notice of suspension for alleged involvement with Guptas

Sars head of legal Refiloe Mokoena has been served by the authority with a notice of intention to suspend her, News24 reports.

According to the report, the notice was handed to her over her alleged involvement in the illegal payments of R420 million in tax refunds claimed by Gupta companies.

It was reported early last month that the tax refunds were allegedly paid into an attorney’s trust account, to a shelf company, and businessman and former colleague of Tom Moyane’s nephew.

Mokoena reportedly invoked Moyane’s name to strong-arm officials at the authority to pay the VAT refunds.

Mokoena, however, dismissed the allegations and accused the CEO of Gupta-owned Oakbay Ronica Ragavan of being untruthful when requesting the VAT refunds be paid into an attorney’s trust account.

The notice was reportedly given to Mokoena on Wednesday and she will be afforded the opportunity to give reasons why she should not be suspended.

However, Mokoena reportedly said she had not received the notice, referring the news website to the authority for a response.

Sars responded by stating that it goes against its policy to discuss internal processes and employee information due to these being confidential.

According to media reports, at the time of the VAT refunds, the Bank of Baroda was attempting to reduce its work with the Guptas as they were unable to hide the family’s money laundering.

The scheme, which apparently involves money laundering and VAT fraud, supposedly saw Sars contravening the laws it was tasked with upholding.

It was reported that Sars enabled the Guptas to continue laundering money after the banks had shut the doors and refused to keep handling the family’s money.

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