Johannesburg — Kobus Viljoen (46), the corrupt SARS employee, was today (24October 2003) sentenced to nine years imprisonment for three counts of fraud and corruption by the Johannesburg Regional Court. While Viljoen was employed by SA Revenue Service (SARS) he had connived at fraudulent tax write-offs granted to Tigon Ltd's subsidiaries, Shawcell Telecommunications and Synergy Management and Finance (Pty) Ltd.

Four of the nine years sentence were suspended in exchange for a plea bargain that will see him turn state witness and testify in ongoing cases against Gary Porritt and Grant Ramsay later this month. Viljoen will serve his five-year sentence at Pretoria Central prison and will forfeit his SARS pension of R660,000. Earlier this year Grant Ramsay was sentenced to five years imprisonment for contraventions of Section 104 of the Income Tax Act.

State Prosecutor, Jan Ferreira, told the court that while in prison Viljoen will have access to a breathing machine in jail to fight his medical condition: Severe Obstructive Sleep Apnoea - which stops a sufferer from breathing whilst sleeping and is caused by high blood pressure and heart arrhythmias.

Ferreira also said that Viljoen's co-operation in giving evidence in other cases relating to this case as well as not dragging his case through a long trial had persuaded the prosecutor's office to reduce the nine-year sentence.

Viljoen admitted guilt on three counts of fraud and corruption where he arranged to move tax files for Gary Porrit's companies; Tigon, Shawcell and Synergy; from the South African Revenue Service (SARS) office in Pietermaritzberg to the SARS office in Johannesburg. Viljoen, who had built up a 20-year career at SARS and was the Deputy Director in charge of the Johannesburg SARS office, then proceeded to provide these two companies with tax rulings that allowed for questionable tax write-offs.

Viljoen had granted a Section 11(g)a ruling in favour to Shawcell that allowed the company to accelerate the write-offs pertaining to intellectual property rights that could have cost SARS R1.2-bn but, in the event, only resulted in a loss of tax revenue of R100-m. He also granted a Section 11(bis) ruling with similar effect to Synergy that could have cost R200-m but resulted in a loss of R60-m. It was found that Viljoen had received R395 000 in bribes from the management at these companies for the fraudulent actions.

Head of Communications at SARS, Sechaba Nkosi, said to Moneyweb: "This is only the beginning we intend to clamp this all down eventually, but it will take time." SARS Commissioner, Pravin Gordhan said in a statement: "We are committed to rooting out fraud and corruption whether it comes from within our ranks or outside and we make no apologies for that. Law abiding South Africans should know that we will never hesitate to use any means to defend our integrity and the confidence that the public has entrusted on us as a government institution."

The assistant commissioner Hans Meiring, who heads up Commercial Branch of the SA police, said in a separate statement:: "This is a very complex investigation that is gaining momentum and by no means over. The members of the investigation team is still pursuing the matter and no stone will be left unturned until everybody involved is dealt with."