{"id":863989,"date":"2026-06-18T14:57:59","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T12:57:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=863989"},"modified":"2026-06-18T14:58:02","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T12:58:02","slug":"the-sars-champions-who-save-south-africa-from-losing-r1-7-billion-a-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/863989\/the-sars-champions-who-save-south-africa-from-losing-r1-7-billion-a-year\/","title":{"rendered":"The SARS champions who save South Africa from losing R1.7 billion a year"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The South African Revenue Service (SARS) currently has 57 detector dogs that successfully protected R5 billion in revenue from being lost over the past three years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, there is currently a shortfall of 14 dogs to meet the approved capacity requirements and provide sufficient operational coverage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana, this shortfall in the number of dogs means the country could be losing as much as R400 million to criminal operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Responding to a parliamentary Q&A, the minister said that SARS does not maintain a direct, quantified estimate of revenue foregone due to constraints in dog detector capacity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, an indicative estimate can be derived from the dog unit’s contribution to revenue protection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Based on an average annual revenue protection value of approximately R1.7 billion over the past three financial years, and an operational deployment capacity of approximately 57 detector dogs, the estimated contribution per deployed detector dog could be estimated as in the order of R29.7 million per annum,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On this basis, the current shortfall of 14 detector dogs may represent an indicative revenue protection gap of approximately R415 million per annum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This estimate remains subject to operational deployment, the prevailing risk environment and detection success rates, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking at available data, the minister noted that the detector dog unit has been instrumental in protecting billions of rands in revenue over the past three years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their efforts have helped SARS and authorities seize contraband, including narcotics, tobacco products, alcohol, pharmaceuticals, wildlife products, currency and other illicit goods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the past three financial years, the total value of goods seized through detector dog operations exceeded R11.7 billion, with R5 billion in revenue protected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The operations also led to 16 successful criminal prosecutions, in cases valued at R19 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Year<\/th>Value of goods<\/th>Revenue protected<\/th>Criminal prosecutions<\/th>Case value<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
FY2023\/24<\/td>R3.6 billion<\/td>R1.4 billion<\/td>2<\/td>R1.7 million<\/td><\/tr>
FY2024\/25<\/td>R5.0 billion<\/td>R2.0 billion<\/td>7<\/td>R12.4 million<\/td><\/tr>
FY2025\/26<\/td>R3.1 billion<\/td>R1.6 billion<\/td>7<\/td>R4.9 million<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

More dogs needed<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Godongwana noted that the revenue service is facing some challenges in meeting the required capacity for detector dogs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the challenges is that many breeders are reluctant to register on the Central Supplier Database (CSD), which precludes them from being considered for procurement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“In addition, some breeders do not meet the compliance requirements for registration on the CSD,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A further challenge is the limited availability of dogs that meet the behavioural standards required for customs detector dog training. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“In this regard, more than 60% of dogs assessed do not meet the testing requirements,” the minister said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He added that another capacity issue is that all government entities compete for dogs from the small group of suppliers on the CSD database, which “massively inflates prices and reduces availability”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To address the shortfall, he said that a business case for appointing a new panel of service providers has been prepared, and the tender process is expected to commence by July 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It is anticipated that the new panel of service providers will be implemented by April 2027,” Godongwana said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SARS currently has 57 detector dogs that successfully protected R5 billion in revenue from being lost over the past three years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":863993,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[17448,3246],"class_list":["post-863989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-enoch-godongwana","tag-sars"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863989","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=863989"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863989\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":863995,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863989\/revisions\/863995"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/863993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=863989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=863989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=863989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}