The South African Revenue Service (SARS) is on a recruitment drive to attract highly-skilled and experienced individuals in areas such as IT, data management, legal specialist services, and audit and risk, among others.
SARS commissioner Edward Kieswetter has been openly critical of the organisation’s skills limitations, previously saying the tax collecting agency had been “dumbed-down” to the point of tears.
During the course of the past few days, the revenue service has advertised various job posts to fill 370 positions with highly-skilled, experienced, results-driven, self-directed leaders and specialists with sound judgement in specialised roles.
It is also seeking 200 recently-graduated South Africans mainly in the tax, customs, chartered accountant, legal and audit areas.
According to the organisation, the advertised vacancies form part of its journey towards building “a smart, modern SARS with unquestionable integrity, trusted and admired by all”.
Foremost among the IT roles SARS wants to fill is that of a chief data scientist, chief technology
and innovation officer, as well as specialists and senior specialists in data analytics and data science.In terms of IT specialists, SARS is looking for developers, database administrators, integration
designers, websphere application server specialists, SAP specialists, and IT security, software and server engineers.“Our mandate is to ensure optimal compliance with tax and customs legislation,” says SARS. “We do this through fostering a culture of voluntary compliance and by making it easy for taxpayers and traders to comply with their legal obligations.
“In an era characterised by rapidly-evolving technological innovation, SARS is preparing for a world where increasingly our work is informed by data-driven insights, machine learning, algorithms, artificial intelligence and interconnectivity of people and devices.
“The dynamic world of work calls for pioneers imbued by a sense of serving the SARS higher purpose and service to our people.”
Applications close on 11 April. To apply, click here.