The SARS Tender: Can an Agency in Turmoil be Both Agile and Prudent?

At the recent Tax Stamp Forum^™ in Budapest one question that kept coming up was: what is the status of the South African Revenue Service (SARS) tender for a tax stamp or secure marking solution for tobacco products? (The current SARS tender has already been extended twice, with the closing date for submissions now set for 31 October 2019.)

The tender has elicited great interest from potential solution vendors, with more than 100 people attending the briefing by SARS in May 2019. The short answer, of course, is that no one really knows what the status is as SARS has said little about the project from its original announcement earlier this year.

The tender was issued four days before new Commissioner Edward Kieswetter took office, following the dismissal of his predecessor Tom Moyane (whose legacy of failure and corruption was described by a commission of enquiry as having turned the tax institution – once hailed as a world-class system – ‘on its head’). The process is high profile, politicised and directly associated with much broader issues in relation to South Africa’s struggle against state capture.