Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa is brokering an exit deal between suspended SA Revenue Service (SARS) deputy commissioner Ivan Pillay and the revenue collector’s head, Tom Moyane, reported City Press on Sunday.

According to the report Pillay is demanding R6m from the taxman, which he says is money due to him for the remainder of his contract.

City Press has learnt that the ANC was trying to save the image of SARS after persistent negative reports about infighting at the organisation appeared in the media over the past few months.

Those who have already left SARS since the exodus of senior staff members started in the middle of last year include chief operating officer Barry Hore; modernisation and strategy head Jérôme Frey; the head of the case selection division under Hore, Jacques Meyer; anticorruption and security head Clifford Collings; SARS investigations head Johan van Loggerenberg; Pillay’s special adviser Yolisa Pikie; and spokespeople Adrian Lackay and Marika Muller.

City Press has also learnt from three senior SARS sources that Ramaphosa, who returns from a government trip to Indonesia on Sunday, has held several meetings with both Pillay and Moyane.

“The deal was supposed to have been finalised this week, but [Ramaphosa’s] trip, which President Jacob Zuma was due to take prior to the xenophobia attacks, delayed the processes. The talks are expected to resume [this] week,” a senior SARS source said.

According to two senior sources, who are familiar with the negotiations, the talks hit a snag a few weeks ago when Moyane insisted that disciplinary hearings against Pillay should continue.

“Ramaphosa has been asked by the ANC to broker a deal that could lead to the end of the protracted disciplinary hearings, as well as the negative publicity arising from the issue,” said another SARS employee who was familiar with the talks.

City Press has learnt that Ramaphosa’s intervention came after discussions facilitated by ANC deputy secretary-general Jessie Duarte failed.

“Ivan belongs to the ANC and, despite the differences, the ANC does not want to have him and commissioner Moyane battling it out in the courts and airing their dirty laundry in public,” a source said.

It is understood that some of the issues that led to Ramaphosa’s intervention were the fact that Pillay, Pikie and SARS group executive Peter Richer – who was suspended in December – were in the process of challenging Advocate Muzi Sikhakhane’s objectivity in his report on their disciplinary proceedings.

News24.com