Ravele On Sars Shortlist Despite Shady Past

Van Loggerenberg’s boss in line to be commissioner.

ONE OF THE CANDIDATES on Trevor Manuel’s shortlist for the high profile vacancy of Commissioner of the South African Revenue Service is Gene Ravele, who as SARS’s former Enforcement chief was the immediate boss of Johann van Loggerenberg, head of the controversial High Risk Investigations Unit. An email exchange reveals their precarious relationship and Noseweek presents Ravele’s strange U-turn over the “rogue unit”.

Back in the dark days of apartheid, Gene Ravele, youthful member of the politico-military movement of the ANC, was in and out of detention. Finally in 1988, aged 18, he was detained without trial and held in solitary confinement for 272 days in Nylstroom Prison, where he was subjected to physical and psychological torture.

In 1992, when he was 23, Johann van Loggerenberg joined the apartheid police’s Republican Spy Programme. As agent RS 536, his was the dangerous double life of safe houses, false names, lies and betrayal.

For both men, the apartheid years took a heavy toll. Young Ravele emerged from prison suffering from post traumatic stress disorder and spent the better part of a year undergoing psychological treatment before he was able to enrol at university for a law degree, which he successfully completed in 1993.

Van Loggerenberg, who says he spent his police undercover years infiltrating organised crime syndicates, also emerged suffering from post traumatic stress. Post apartheid – first seconded to the National Intelligence Agency, then a spell in the Secret Service – his condition developed into social anxiety disorder, panic attacks and finally a 2010 diagnosis of bipolar 11. By 2014 he had clocked up 113 sessions with a counselling psychologist.