As part of its strategy to render an effective tax system, the South African Revenue Service (SARS) yesterday unveiled its collections call centre in Randburg, north of Johannesburg.
The thrust of the centre is to:
The centre operates from 08:00 to 20:00 on weekdays and is manned by 62 agents working two shifts. The possibility of extending the operations into weekends is being looked into.
The operation has made more than 447 000 calls between February 6 2001, when it started and March. Over 120 000 Taxpayers were contacted about their tax affairs over this period.
"We have said it, but we'll say it again: we have initiated a world-class re-engineering project, Siyakha, with which we are honing our organisation into an effective and efficient machinery."
"Whilst this centre is about enforcement, we are looking into establishing an inbound call centre which will enable us to render a good service to our clients. Service is now at the top of our agenda, unlike in the past when it was given little or no attention," says SARS Commissioner, Mr Pravin Gordhan.In the 2001/02 financial year, the centre aims to:
ISSUED BY THE COMMISSIONER FOR THE SOUTH AFRICAN REVENUE SERVICE
PRETORIA