Public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan confirmed on Thursday that a subpoena had been served on him by the Public Protector in relation to the so-called Sars "rogue unit".
"The same set of allegations have been investigated repeatedly by various institutions - including the office of the Public Protector in 2014 - and no conclusive evidence could be found of any illegality by [the South African Revenue Service] or minister Gordhan," said his spokesperson, Adrian Lackay.
Lackay said the subpoena had been "leaked" to the media while the minister was in the process of consulting counsel to determine the most appropriate legal response to what clearly amounted to persistent harassment of Gordhan and a flagrant abuse of office.
"This is also another example of a fight-back campaign to disrupt efforts to uncover and prosecute instances of malfeasance and corruption in various entities of government.
"We must once again call on the South African public to connect a new set of dots and get an appreciation for the determined efforts to distract public attention from the broad attempts to ensure clean governance in our country," Lackay said.
Gordhan was given until April 23 to submit an affidavit to the Public Protector in response to a complaint about him establishing the “intelligence unit”.
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