{"id":134250,"date":"2016-08-23T18:49:57","date_gmt":"2016-08-23T16:49:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=134250"},"modified":"2016-08-24T08:40:56","modified_gmt":"2016-08-24T06:40:56","slug":"rand-in-trouble-as-hawks-reportedly-move-in-on-gordhan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/134250\/rand-in-trouble-as-hawks-reportedly-move-in-on-gordhan\/","title":{"rendered":"Rand in trouble as Hawks move in on Gordhan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Finance minister Pravin Gordhan and other former SARS officials have\u00a0reportedly been ordered to &#8216;present&#8217; themselves at the Hawks&#8217; offices to receive warning statements, <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailymaverick.co.za\/article\/2016-08-23-breaking-sars-wars-endgame-hawks-order-pravin-gordhan-and-others-to-present-themselves\/#.V7xxyJh96hd\">The Daily Maverick reports<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The warning statements are letters informing the officials of charges they will be facing in relation to a so-called &#8220;rogue SARS unit&#8221; established under Gordhan&#8217;s watch, used to spy on citizens and government officials.<\/p>\n<p>According to the DM report,\u00a0former SARS deputy commissioner Ivan Pillay, former group executive Johann van Loggerenberg, and former spokesperson Adrian Lackay, and\u00a0head of the investigative unit, Andries van Rensburg, have been notified along with Gordhan.<\/p>\n<p>The publication said it has been &#8220;reliably informed&#8221; that the officials have been asked to report to the Hawks offices in Pretoria at 10am on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>The DM said that the following charges will apply:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Pillay, Van Loggerenberg, Lackay and Van Rensburg face possible charges in relation as to how the SARS unit was formed.<\/li>\n<li>Pillay will be questioned in relation to his pension payout, and\u00a0will also face questions about the alleged \u201cproject Sunday Evenings\u201d.<\/li>\n<li>Van Loggerenberg will be questioned in relation to a charity he ran.<\/li>\n<li>Van Rensburg (former head of the SARS unit) will be questioned on his involvement in allegedly bugging the offices of the National Prosecuting Authority in 2007 at the behest of the then Directorate of Special Operations, or the Scorpions, who were investigating police commissioner Jackie Selebi.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The Hawks told the publication that it would not discuss any confidential information attached to any case, and said any claims were &#8220;mere speculation&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Van Loggerenberg, Pillay and Lackay declined to comment on the matter, the DM said.<\/p>\n<p>According to EWN, National Treasury has confirmed\u00a0that\u00a0Gordhan received correspondence from the Hawks on Monday, and is\u00a0currently taking legal advice.<\/p>\n<p>In May 2016, ahead of a critical credit rating period for South Africa,\u00a0National Prosecuting Authority head Shaun Abrahams joined the Hawks in rubbishing reports that Gordhan was facing arrest on charges of espionage.<\/p>\n<p>Both the NPA and the Hawks said that there was no investigation into the &#8216;rogue unit&#8217;- but added that there was no obligation to discuss the matter, or comment on any evidence they may or may not have.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"focusParagraph\">Hawks spokesman Hangwani Mulaudzi told Reuters that he knew nothing about the report instructing Gordhan <\/span>to report to the police.<\/p>\n<p>After the report was published, the rand weakened sharply from\u00a0R13.45 to R13.70. The currency now trading at R13.80 to the dollar.<\/p>\n<p><a  data-lightbox=\"post-image\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/ZAR-USD.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-new-size wp-image-134258\" src=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/ZAR-USD-640x420.png\" alt=\"ZAR USD\" width=\"640\" height=\"420\" srcset=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/ZAR-USD-640x420.png 640w, https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/ZAR-USD-300x197.png 300w, https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/ZAR-USD-768x504.png 768w, https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/ZAR-USD.png 884w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">More on the Hawks vs Gordhan<\/h3>\n<p><strong><a title=\"Permalink to Gordhan responds to arrest claims: \u2018I can\u2019t believe this is happening\u2019\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/123957\/gordhan-responds-to-arrest-claims-i-cant-believe-this-is-happening\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Gordhan responds to arrest claims: \u2018I can\u2019t believe this is happening\u2019<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a title=\"Permalink to A new twist in the Hawks vs Gordhan saga\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/125021\/a-new-twist-in-the-hawks-vs-gordhan-saga\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">A new twist in the Hawks vs Gordhan saga<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a title=\"Permalink to Let\u2019s be clear \u2013 there are no charges against Pravin Gordhan: NPA\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/124559\/lets-be-clear-there-are-no-charges-against-pravin-gordhan-npa\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Let\u2019s be clear \u2013 there are no charges against Pravin Gordhan: NPA<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a title=\"Zuma takes charge of state owned companies\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/general\/134108\/zuma-takes-charge-of-state-owned-companies\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Zuma takes charge of state owned companies<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Finance minister Pravin Gordhan and other former SARS officials have reportedly been ordered to &#8216;present&#8217; themselves at the Hawks&#8217; offices to receive warning statements, The Daily Maverick reports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":114050,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121,23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-134250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","category-government","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134250"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":134302,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134250\/revisions\/134302"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}