Former South African Revenue Service (Sars) chief operations officer Barry Hore has slammed a report by global consultancy firm Gartner‚ saying he could find “no value” in the work which cost the revenue service about R200-million.
Hore was testifying at retired judge Robert Nugent’s commission of inquiry into tax administration and governance at Sars on Thursday. He served as COO between 2010 and 2014‚ resigning shortly after now-suspended commissioner Tom Moyane took over.
Hore also spearheaded a modernisation programme at Sars which was halted after Gartner’s recommendations were made.
According to Gartner’s report‚ the firm agreed that Sars’ core business is revenue collection and that it needed to be a consumer-centric organisation. Hore told the commission these were the only two points of the report he could agree with.
The commission provided Hore with a copy of the report and asked him to give his opinion on the process used by the firm in evaluating Sars’ IT strategy and the findings it then derived.