New SARS boss Edward Kieswetter has labelled as defamation accusations that he tried to arrange a lucrative contract for a friend and ran the Technology Innovation Agency (TIA), whose board he chairs, as his personal fiefdom. A Sunday Times report says the recently axed CEO of the agency, Barlow Manilal, has accused Kieswetter of, among other things, trying to organise a coaching contract at the TIA for a friend and insisting on flying business class in contravention of agency policy. Manilal, who says he turned the agency around during his four-year tenure, says Kieswetter ‘bullied and hounded’ him after taking over as chair two years ago. Manilal, whose contract was terminated one year early by the board last month, makes these and other allegations in a 22-page complaint sent to the Minister of Higher Education, Science and Technology, Blade Nzimande, under whose department the TIA falls. Kieswetter, appointed Commissioner of SARS as part of President Cyril Ramaphosa's corruption clean-up, has denied the claims, calling them an ‘attack on my integrity and therefore my suitability for the position I hold as commissioner of SARS’. The TIA is a state-owned development finance institution intended to ‘bridge the gap between research and innovation by funding promising projects from higher education institutions, public entities and the private sector’ in the fields of energy, information and communication technology, and health. It disburses up to R500m annually to technology innovation projects, says the report.