EDWARD KIESWETTER INTERVIEW: New SARS boss: 'I hope to reignite that flame of hope from the flicker of despair' By Ruan Jooste
New South African Revenue Service commissioner Edward Kieswetter has his work cut out for him. He is re-entering an organisation that has rotted beyond recognition from when he left it nine years ago to enter the private sector.
It is for this reason Kieswetter has mixed feelings about his appointment as the new SARS boss. He says, on the one hand, he is saddened by the extent to which the organisation had eroded under the watch of former SARS boss Tom Moyane but, on the other hand, considers it an honour to respond to the president’s call to restore the country’s tax office to its former glory.
He links this to his envisioned leadership style – and the failure of his predecessor – and refers to one of his recent posts on Twitter where he stated that “leaders need to take the work seriously, and not themselves”.Many leaders do that,” he says. “They disconnect from the higher purpose in the work they do. It becomes about self-entitlement and self-gratification and the job is approached with an element of arrogance.
Executive Secretary at African Tax Administration Forum , Logan Wort, who served with Kieswetter on the SARS Exco between 2006-2009, says he is very excited about the appointment.His ability to conceptualise and lead strategy and drive decisions will be vital to bring SARS back to a top state institution. If we are serious in rebuilding the organisation, and we look at the list of candidates, the president could not have made a better choice,” he says.
Wort says that relationships with international tax organisations like ATAF deteriorated during Monyane’s rein and agrees with Kieswetter’s view that these fences need to be mended and with great haste, to allow for better cross-border cooperation and enforcement of tax policy, and in turn tax collection.
Both Wort and Engel concur that Kieswetter is a people’s person and that that skill is part of the new commissioner’s charm. An array of social media posts supports that notion. But Kieswetter doesn’t consider it a strength or an attribute as such. “It is just who I am,” he says.“
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