SARS rogue unit story origins
Malcolm Rees and Piet Rampedi initiated the SARS investigation at different times in 2014.
Rees focused on tobacco smugglers such as Adriano Mazotti, and their lawyer, Belinda Walter. From Walter, Rees was able to provide an important evidentiary pillar of the rogue unit narrative: WhatsApp messages between her and the head of the unit, Johan van Loggerenberg, in which he described tapping her clients’ phones. The pair were dating at the time. Van Loggerenberg denied there was illegal surveillance. Via SARS spokesperson Adrian Lackay, he said he had “deliberately lied to his girlfriend at the time” about the phone taps.
Rampedi’s investigation initially focused on a file of HR grievances provided by a shop steward at SARS. Most of them entailed allegations of racism. In this process, Rampedi came across allegations that SARS members were illegally spying on politicians and NPA officials. This became the main thrust of the SARS rogue unit narrative.
A few months later, in the second half of 2014, Wa Afrika and I were assigned by Sunday Times editor Phylicia Oppelt to help with the story. That was the first problem: I didn’t originate the story, and none of the sources were mine. Rampedi was secretive and suspicious. I didn’t know half his sources, so I couldn’t assess them properly.
As usual, Wa Afrika did disclose the identity of his sensitive sources for the SARS rogue unit stories to me. Two were allies of Pravin Gordhan (I knew one of them personally). At the time, we both felt it lent credibility to the story that we were getting some information and documentation from the non-Zuma side.
With hindsight it’s clear that a vicious factional political battle was playing out at the time in SARS, not only between the supporters of Jacob Zuma and Pravin Gordhan, but by different factions within the Gordhan camp itself. The leaks were clearly used as ammunition both by opportunists positioning themselves in the shifting sands of political allegiances within and across ANC camps, and by Zuma’s allies and their corrupt financial backers trying to derail investigations into their shady tax affairs.
stephanhofstatter.com 