SARS faces a total shutdown due to indefinite strike

Busiest border post, Beitbridge, is the hardest hit by the strike action as workers downed tool on Wednesday night

Giving in to the demand for a 11.4% salary increase by SA Revenue Service (Sars) employees will bankrupt the tax agency, its executive for remuneration and benefits Takalani Musekwa said on Thursday.
In an interview with Business Day, on the first day of an indefinite strike at Sars, Musekwa said the increment asked for by the Public Servants Association (PSA) and National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu), was unaffordable and would bankrupt it.

The PSA and Nehawu, the two unions at Sars, represent about 5,300 and 4,400 employees, respectively.
“[It] 11,4% is just an impossible increase to give without bankrupting the organisation.We are hoping they will see the 8% we are giving as a very reasonable offer and in the market anywhere you won’t be able to get that.”
Nehawu and the PSA were however adamant it would take an 8% increase for a single year back to its members if Sars placed it on the table. The tax agency said it would only offer 8% if the unions agreed to a multi-term agreement. The multi-term agreement was rejected by unions on Tuesday evening.
Musekwa said 33 out of 53 walk-in branches were closed on Thursday as a result of the strike, with the rest functioning on a diminished capacity.
He said 90% of the tax agency’s 700 staff members at its contact centres were part of the strike. This lead to taxpayers being turned away..
Ports of entry were affected. Sars employees at the Beitbridge border post are said to have downed tools just after midnight on Wednesday.
The bulk of SA’s trade with the continent is done via Beitbridge border post, largely regarded as Africa’s busiest. Workers at other border posts finished their shifts and only went on strike later on Thursday morning.
Musekwa said it was not all the border posts that were affected. He said the agency deployed managers to all ports to keep an eye on things “even when all the staff are gone”.
He said Sars’s IT division was also affected by the strike.
Stefan Viljoen, labour relations officer for the PSA, said Sars faced an “almost total shutdown”.
He said PSA members received SMS messages asking them to come back to work due to the impact on the system.
Sars on Thursday afternoon obtained an interim interdict from the Labour Court in Johannesburg, barring workers from picketing at branches which were not designated in terms of the picketing rules.

Sars faces a total shutdown due to indefinite strikehttps://t.co/h4H0KFd23e #ArriveAlive #SARS #Strike #Shutdown pic.twitter.com/DjWhbGe3OO

— Arrive Alive (@_ArriveAlive) March 29, 2019