SARS: We steal for Zuma

A few years ago, before Jacob Zuma became President Zuma, Julius Malema headed the ANC Youth League and famously said that the ANCYL would "Kill for Zuma" if necessary. Now have a President Zuma with a "fire pool" at his residential palace in Nkandla, built largely with taxpayer's money and other more dubious sources.
I am one of those taxpayers, and on Wednesday I was subjected to a what I can only describe as theft: an official from the South African Revenue Service took it upon herself to snoop around in my bank account, check the balance, and deduct the money she found there. No warning, no explanation, no due process. On the 9th March my balance was R3,167.75; on 10th March she issued an order to deduct R3,100 from my account. Nice of her to leave me R67 for the rest of the month. Quite generous, really.

In the meantime there were other transactions in the account, so the balance after her little "breaking and entering" stunt was R350 in arrears. Good job I have a R500 overdraft or the transaction would have bounced and I would have been hit with some outrageous bank fees. Of course the FNB doesn't have any security mechanisms in place to warn me that someone from SARS was looking at my balance to see what she could take, but they did tell me once the money was gone. Nice one, FNB. You do a great job of facilitating criminal activity, much like HSBC, another wunch of bankers.

It turns out there is a nasty little program in the SARS computers somewhere that can spit out notices like the one shown above, issued (but not signed) on behalf of the Commissioner. And of course computers never make mistakes, and the information input on the system is flawless in all respects. Never mind that the Tax Administration Act of 2011 never contemplated that such notices would not be issued by a human being, let alone not checked by one before signing it. It is quite specific that it should be an official:

179 (1) A senior SARS official may by notice to a person who holds or owes or will hold or owe any money, including a pension, salary, wage or other remuneration, for or to a taxpayer, require the person to pay the money to SARS in satisfaction of the taxpayer's outstanding tax debt.

This becomes important for the next paragraph, which states

179 (2) A person that is unable to comply with a requirement of the notice, must advise the senior SARS official of the reasons for the inability to comply within the period specified in the notice and the official may withdraw or amend the notice as is appropriate under the circumstances.

As an exercise in pointlessness I called the SARS number 0800 00 7277 and asked for the name of the official who issued my particular notice, and predictably I was told that it was issued by a computer and I should go to my nearest SARS office. That's the standard response by a call centre operator when they don't know what to do and won't put me through to a supervisor.
Not only was the notice not issued correctly, it was not sent to me either. I am told it was posted to me by regular mail during the middle of the Post Office strike, but so far no proof has been provided. Since I was told by the person who took the money, I am somewhat sceptical. Especially when that person claimed to have called me on Wednesday 25th February and left a message. Funny that, because there is no missed call on my phone, and no voicemail either. Not even a message telling me there was voice mail.
A bit of background: this is not the first time the "Collections" department of SARS has supposedly sent me a final demand. This is probably the third one, all relating to the 2003, 2004 and 2005 tax years, for which I should have been awarded amnesty 8 years ago when I applied for it under the relevant legislation. This legislation was designed to "regularize" the affairs of anyone running a small business who was not properly up-to-date with their tax affairs or who had never submitted a tax return.
It really isn't a complicated matter, but somehow during those eight years SARS has managed to:

• Lose the application entirely;
• Fail to notify me when the application had been processed (I found out indirectly by accident);
• Ignore my objection letter to some of their original findings;
• Repeatedly call me for the money even though I kept having to explain that the Amnesty application was in progress;
• Take a year or so to realise that the third objection application form should be signed by me and not by the tax advisor;
• Lose the revised application/objection;
• "Agree" with my objection many months after I sent copies via email;
• In spite of "agreeing" with the objection, they took 7 months in 2014 to decide that the 2003, 2004 and 2005 tax returns were not in business earnings but personal earnings, even though the last paycheck I received was in October 2000;
• Write a letter to me on 15 Sept 2014 informing me of this, but not sending it via email (or post) until after the "Final Demand" of 29 Sept 2014 was already issued. Then they sent it to me via email, once the damage was already done.

During this time the "outstanding debt" of R149,218.48 has generated interest of R142,926.21, and continues to do so at a rate of R805.06 per month.
Update: Why am I writing this? Mainly because I can't sleep. I took sleeping tablets on Wednesday and Thursday nights, but on Friday morning I woke up early and couldn't get back to sleep, and it's now Saturday morning and I am tired of tossing and turning and figuring out how to get SARS to fix my situation the way it should have been done in 2007. So I'm frustrated, gatvol and outraged that some low-level accountant thinks she has the right to go snooping around in my bank accounts and deducting money without my consent.
Update Thursday 12 April: Amnesty department say they can't modify my 2003-2005 tax returns because the computer system won't let them. I guess a manual calculation is beyond them any more.
Update Thursday 14 May: I had a meeting with the Debt Management department at Megawatt Park (now unofficially known as MegaWTF Park) where they casually told me that the "Final Demand" doesn't need to be issued by anyone at all, and it was purely a courtesy that it was issued to me. We'll see about that. They also made a number of other outrageous statements, which will be the subject of several other blog posts.
Update Thursday 11th June: I got a letter from the head of the Amnesty department approving my 2006 Amnesty application, and my account now shows a credit balance of R87,864.58 ;-)

See also: Tax Collectors and Sinners and SARS is making me sick.

The President in the Room

Dear President Zuma
It should not be necessary for me to tell you this, but you seem to have lost your way and are too stubborn to resign; or something.
Our parliamentary democracy has a concept known as question time, during which the elected representatives of the people are allowed to ask you questions, and you are required to answer them truthfully and in full.
Now I know this may come as a shock to you, but there is a big difference between responding to a question and answering it. You know how to respond to a question already: that's the process by which you talk about a subject similar to the topic of the question without saying anything meaningful or important, and hope the issue goes away by itself. It's a weasel tactic used by cowards and liars to avoid responsibility. Lawyers, politicians and marketing people do it all the time.
Honest leaders (or brave ones) choose to actually answer questions in a truthful manner, even if the answer is difficult, embarrassing or uncomfortable. It's a sign of a good leader and it builds trust. As the President you are expected to be a good leader and build the nation through good and honest leadership.
You have not done so. You have lied to parliament (and thereby the people) about the finances of your home in Nkandla. You have done this more than once. So it came as no surprise when during question time in parliament, Mr Malema asked you a direct question and you didn’t answer, but merely responded with the kind of vague platitudes we have come to expect. You seriously underestimated the determination of the EFF to obtain a forthright answer, and now you look like an idiot. What’s worse its that you have handed a major public relations coup to your most vocal opponents. You deserve what you get as a result.
Do you really think that you can misuse millions of Rands in taxpayer money, especially when those Rands have been collected from the voters who pay VAT on things like groceries and fuel? Do you think the voters will let you get away with it? Clearly you think the voters are too stupid or gullible and will just keep voting for the ANC “until Jesus comes”.
I would also like to point out the “elephant in the room” of Parliament: the ANC does not have the support of the majority of eligible voters. 25,388,082 people in South Africa are eligible to vote. Only 11,436,921 people (45%) cast their votes for the ANC. The remaining 6,965,576 votes were cast for other parties, and 6,985,585 did not vote at all. So the “official opposition” is not a party in parliament, but the voters who are sufficiently pissed-off with lying politicians and their empty promises to stay away from the polls.
Do you or anyone else in the political parties understand how dangerous that is? Do you think service delivery protests or the eTolls boycott are a sign of a healthy democracy, or the sign of a country that is losing faith in its elected leaders? Is that why you had a “fire pool” installed at Nkandla, because one day a crowd may just decide to burn your mansion to the ground? Is that why you need all the extra security?
When is the ANC going to start taking seriously issues of service delivery, competent and transparent government, and alleviating poverty seriously? Time is running out for you and your kleptocratic party. And there won’t be much mercy when the mob starts chanting “Pay Back the Money” outside the gates of Nkandla.
So I think it is time for you to stop ducking and diving and start leading the nation the way you are supposed to. Quit being distracted by your wives, lovers and architects (they are all screwing you one way or another) and start leading your party like an adult.
Before it’s too late.
#PayBackTheMoney
P.S. Being appointed to a position of leadership is not the same as actually leading. Its time you started leading.

Click on the image to see it in a readable size.

The President's (16N) Image

This is a story of bad behaviour all round. First there was the iconic artwork of Lenin, shown above. Lenin's actions and policies killed off a lot of people. He was regarded as a hero by many socialist, communist and revolutionary types around the world, who justified all the killing and focused on his rhetoric and writings instead.
Fast forward to 2012 and an artist (Brett Murray) decides to parody this iconic painting by replacing Lenin's face with our glorious President Jacob Zuma, husband of several wives (simultaneously), father of a dozen or so (illegitimate) children, and General Sleazeball.
Every time he announces another wedding or engagement I feel insulted. Presumably the artist feels similar sentiments, which is why he added some genitals to the picture too.
This all went unnoticed in the Goodman art gallery for about a week until someone decided to complain. There's always someone who complains. Of course I feel sorry for the children of our glorious President, since they didn't choose their father, or his immoral behaviour. But since their expenses are paid for by the state, they hardly have much to complain about: a ride on the gravy train has its drawbacks too.
Our Glorious President proved how good his decision making skills are by spending more money on lawyers and going to the High Court to get the painting taken off display. Isn't it ironic that he claimed his "dignity" was being infringed. What about the dignity of ordinary monogamous South Africans?
Now some sanctimonious vandals have decided to inflame the debate by taking the law into their own hands and deface the painting. If Bryan feels that strongly about it, why didn't he just buy the painting? I hope the artist sues him for millions and he gets sent to jail. It'll never happen, of course: the police will just be paid to lose the docket, and/or the judge will decide he wants a promotion.
So now we have a "debate" that has "supporters" of the President condoning death threats against the artist and vandalism of private property. They accuse the artist of "racism" (how predictable) but are silent about the way the president has degraded and diminished the nation's status worldwide.

All I can say is that if it is "racist" to criticise the ANC leadership for its bungling incompetence, dubious morals and arrogance in public, then I'm a "racist" too. Our leaders are behaving like a bunch of savages, stealing public funds, imposing dictatorial decisions on the public, and trying to operate under a cloak of secrecy. They really need to grow up.

Here's what the image restorers came up with:

Mail and Guardian meme of the nation

Update Sunday 27 May: The ANC has called for a boycott of City Press newspaper. Their badly-written press statement is full of rhetoric and low on ideas. I tried buying a copy of City Press today, but they were sold out at Spar, CNA, and Exclusive Books. I eventually found two copies at a filling station, and bought both. I have decided to subscribe to City Press as well. As for the poster below, it is so hypocritical as to be sad.

Update: The FPB has classified images of the pre-censorship painting as being unsuitable for viewing by people under the age of 16. Good luck with getting Google and Wikipedia to remove it. Personally I think they should classify the President's face as 18SVLN and ban it from ever appearing in public. That would be of great help to both children and adults.

After all of this, the City Press had the last word:



Update: 29 Aug 2012: Yawn. Another day, another painting. Ayanda Mabulu's painting Umshini Wam (Weapon of Mass Destruction), currently on display at the AVA Gallery in Cape Town, depicts Zuma in traditional Zulu garb with his right leg raised and pointing forward, exposing his genitalia and part of the presidential buttocks.
"The painting depicting Jacob Zuma is a respectful one. He is clothed in his culture. He is clothed in his manhood," he said in a statement.
Mabulu added he was merely questioning the current status quo.
"I respect the ANC liberation elders," he said. "They worked for the interests of the people. [But the ANC of today] is filled with greed and the lust of capitalism. You are reacting defensively; you are saying you are being attacked. I'm not attacking you; I'm respectfully asking a question," he said.

SA Politics in a nutshell

Trevor Hoah is brilliant. He summarises the SA political media circus so well.

Zuma: A Nation Mourns

Following the NPA's election rally on national TV, the nation is in shock and mourning. How anyone can have charges against them dropped because other people broke the law is a mystery to most of us.
So now we have crooks getting other crooks off the hook by engaging in criminal activity. The mind boggles. If Zuma is innocent, then Shabir Shaik's trial should be overturned. But enough of that: South Africa's legal community will attempt to recover its tattered reputation somehow, I'm sure.
Of course, the political fallout has yet to be determined, and I'd hate to be anyone in governement who has to deal with foreign governments. Oh the shame and humiliation! The rest of us just mourn the passing of democracy, justice and rule of law. It was a fine illusion while it lasted.
Some cynic said "Democracy is where the majority gets what the majority deserves." Sadly, in SA this is true. The majority is going to elect a party of ciminals into office, as they have done in the past, and they will be screwed once again by the likes of Julius "Fork and Knife" Malema. They deserve what they get. Unfortunately the idiots will not be the only ones to suffer.
NPA: Non-Prosecuting Authority, no longer the National Prosecuting Authority
Update 9th April: The ANC's dufus response to these posters (actually they are pretty awesome) was to blame "mischievous forces of darkness". Actually that's a pretty good ANC definition of the word "voter". Do they really not have a clue? Electorate = "mischievous forces of darkness".

Update 14 April: It would appear that the NPA plagiarised their statement from a Hong Kong judge. It sounded too clever to be genuine.