/ 27 February 2007

Trust calls on Sars to apologise to Zuma

The South African Revenue Service (Sars) should publicly apologise to African National Congress deputy president Jacob Zuma, the Friends of Jacob Zuma Trust in Gauteng demanded on Tuesday.

This follows reports that Sars served Zuma with a summons after he apparently failed to submit his tax return, information that Sars denied leaking to the media.

”It is not enough for Sars to deny leaking information,” JZ Trust Gauteng spokesperson Kaizer Mohau said in a statement.

Mohau said if the leak was not from Sars, then Sars should indicate with whom it shared the information besides Zuma’s legal team and the courts.

He accused the National Prosecuting Authority of ”canvassing other institutions” to ensure Zuma was ”in these troubles” until the ANC’s conference later this year.

On Sunday, the Sunday Independent reported that Sars had served Zuma with a summons, which allegedly questioned the completeness of Zuma’s disclosure of his income and his failure to submit a tax return.

According to the newspaper, Zuma attorney Michael Hulley collected the summons from the Durban Magistrate’s Court then agreed with Sars to provide the information required in early April. — Sapa