The Information Regulator has ordered SARS to release former president Jacob Zuma's tax records and has eviscerated the agency for its 'soft approach' to Zuma's tax non-compliance. Seven years after amaBhungane first filed the Paia request, we may finally see exactly how Zuma skirted his tax obligations, seemingly with SARS' blessing. The wheels of accountability may grind slowly, but the Information Regulator is demonstrating the benefit of effective mechanisms that prevent state enterprises from weaselling out of their constitutional and legal obligations.

The Information Regulator has ordered SARS to release former president Jacob Zuma's tax records and has eviscerated the agency for its 'soft approach' to Zuma's tax non-compliance. Seven years after amaBhungane first filed the Paia request, we may finally see exactly how Zuma skirted his tax obligations, seemingly with SARS' blessing. The wheels of accountability may grind slowly, but the Information Regulator is demonstrating the benefit of effective mechanisms that prevent state enterprises from weaselling out of their constitutional and legal obligations.

In February 2019, amaBhungane and Warren Thompson, then a journalist at Financial Mail, filed requests under the Promotion of Access to Information Act (Paia) for access to former president Jacob Zuma's tax records.

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We believed that the records would demonstrate that Zuma had not declared all his income to the South African Revenue Service (SARS), and we had a suspicion that SARS was treating Zuma with kid gloves.

This week, we have been vindicated. On Wednesday, Advocate Pansy Tlakula, the chairperson of the Information Regulator, issued an enforcement notice compelling SARS to disclose all the information we requested.

The notice and its reasoning is a ringing endorsement of everything we have argued over the past nearly seven years....