SPAR responds to VAT fraud allegations

SPAR has denied allegations contained in a recent report from BDO, which claimed that there were findings of value-added tax (VAT) fraud at the retailer’s corporate stores.

This report was commissioned by Amaan Sayed, a local businessman looking to acquire a single SPAR corporate store: the Bloed Street SuperSPAR, and the TOPS store.

Sayed previously owned the store and was looking to re-acquire it for a consideration of R4 million.

To conduct due diligence ahead of his acquisition, Sayed commissioned BDO to compile the report in mid-2025.

Following this, Sayed signed a sale agreement for the purchase of the Bloed Street store in February 2026. 

That agreement was, as is standard for all SPAR independent retailer transactions, conditional on SPAR Guild of Southern Africa NPC membership approval.

In March 2026, the Guild declined Sayed’s membership application. According to SPAR, this was allegedly on the grounds of his poor credit history and the “need to protect the SPAR brand”.

On Tuesday, 2 June, BusinessDay published an article about BDO’s report, saying it had found instances of VAT fraud at the Bloed Street TOPS store.

“The professional services firm found unreliable financial information that does not tie to financials and inflated gross profit that is not indicative of underlying stock and sales,” the publication reported.

The publication further claimed that BDO made damning findings that the store underdeclared output sales and overdeclared input sales, which would constitute VAT fraud.

In a statement released on SENS on Wednesday, 3 June, SPAR denied these allegations. 

The retailer pointed out that its external auditors, PwC, had not raised any reportable irregularities in respect of its financial reporting or governance processes.

“The BDO engagement was a limited, single-store due diligence review, commissioned under confidentiality arrangements,” SPAR said. 

“It was neither an audit nor a forensic audit of the group’s operations, and it does not represent systemic findings across the group.”

SPAR also rejected any suggestion that VAT fraud has been established. “No finding of VAT fraud has been made against SPAR or the corporate store concerned,” it said. 

“The characterisation of the matter as a ‘VAT fraud saga’ is therefore totally inaccurate and misleading.”

The retailer claimed that Sayed was bound by a non-disclosure agreement covering the BDO report. 

“He further undertook that the report would be deleted, an assertion confirmed by his attorney, who stated that he is no longer in possession of the information,” SPAR said.

“It is unfortunate that he has, nonetheless, provided it to the media in breach of these undertakings.”

SPAR claimed that, shortly after the Guild’s rejection, Sayed filed coordinated regulatory complaints targeting the retailer’s chairman, Mike Bosman.

“The board regards this sequence of events as directly and materially relevant to any assessment of the motivation and credibility of Sayed’s complaints. SPAR has said so openly and will continue to do so,” SPAR said.

BusinessDay reported that Sayed singled out Bosman for allegedly ignoring warnings about fraud, corruption and accounting irregularities across SPAR’s corporate store network.

He filed complaints against Bosman on 10 April, alleging that the chairman failed to discharge the governance duties associated with his role, seeking to have Bosman declared a “delinquent director”.