Sars will make submissions to the National Director of Public Prosecutions about the taxman’s conduct in Shauwn Mpisane’s trial.
|||Durban - The SA Revenue Service (Sars) is to make submissions to the National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP) about the taxman’s conduct in the trial of Durban businesswoman Shauwn Mpisane.
This is after Mpisane made representations to the national director in a bid to have the charges against her quashed. The crux of her submissions was that her right to a fair trial was infringed by the State.
The defence argued that State prosecutor Meera Naidu suppressed evidence by failing to hand over all the statements in the docket and also questioned her conduct.
On Monday Mpisane’s advocate, Rafik Bhana, told Durban regional magistrate Blessing Msani that Sars wanted to respond to the representations.
“We have a letter from a law firm who are representing Sars. They indicate that some of the accusations we make deal not only with the State prosecutor, but can also impact on the reputation of Sars and they want to make submissions to the NDPP.”
Mpisane and her company had been charged in the Durban Regional Court with 119 counts of fraud involving R4.7 million. The charges were that she submitted documents, including fraudulent revised income tax statements for the 2008 tax year, and fake invoices, to Sars and put incorrect information on VAT returns for the 2009/10 tax year.
She has also been charged with violating the Close Corporations Act by operating a close corporation despite having a criminal conviction for VAT fraud in 2005.
Mpisane has pleaded not guilty and has blamed her former bookkeeper, Kishal Reddy.
In a separate case, Reddy pleaded guilty to generating the fake invoices, but said he had done it on Mpisane’s orders. He was fined R30 000 and would be the State’s key witness in the trial.
Naidu said she would also be responding to the representations.
Bhana said on Monday that the defence had come across further examples of suppression of evidence which had “startling implications” for the case.
“It has now been revealed that we only had 64 of 182 statements in the docket.
“Also it appears that the State deliberately kept the statement of Sars auditor Sumantha Ramharak from the defence. The statement, which is a 255-page document, was only given to the defence two weeks ago after we asked for it. It took the State a year to give us the document as it was authored in June last year.”
The case has been adjourned to September for the NDPP’s decision.
The Mercury