/ 29 August 1999

BUNGU’S BIGGEST FIGHT — AGAINST THE TAXMAN

FORMER IBF world junior featherweight boxing champion Vuyani Bungu and five other top boxers at East London’s prestigious Eyethu stable face the biggest fight of their lives — against the Receiver of Revenue who has promised no mercy in recovering more than R1-million in unpaid taxes. And the boxers, through their trainer Mzi Mnguni who says “all these boys know is how to fight” and that “no one ever told them” about taxation over the last four years, appear to have thrown in at least half of the towel already. Mnguni has asked the South African National Boxing Commission to plead with the SA Revenue Services to grant his charges amnesty, but the taxman is determined to collect. Bungu owes about R900000 in outstanding payments, back dated over the last four years. Mnguni said the Receiver had to consider that boxing had bailed his unschooled fighters out of ghettos where they had never been educated about tax. The commission has promised to take the matter up with the SARS. — Peter Dickson