Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa on Thursday said a report compiled by auditing firm KPMG for the South African Revenue Service into the existence of a “rogue spy unit” was “grossly unfair” to former finance minister Pravin Gordhan.

The KPMG report, which insinuated that Gordhan knew of wrongdoing by an intelligence unit within the tax service, was withdrawn by the auditing firm last month. The firm said documents provided to it did not prove an interpretation that Gordhan’s knew of the rogue nature of the unit.

Asked whether he supported the release of the “now-discredited report” and whether he would apologise to Gordhan on behalf of government because of the implications it had, including the part it played in the respected former minister’s axing in May, Ramaphosa first said this was up to current Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba.

Ramaphosa later conceded the report had caused great harm to Gordhan.

“From optically looking at it from where I stand, it is quite clear that the report itself was  grossly, grossly unfair to former minister Pravin Gordhan and indeed the apology that should be forthcoming, should be forthcoming from the appropriate quarter, which will be dealing with how we should manage this whole report,” the deputy president said.

“It is a matter of great concern because it’s a very controversial report that has led to a number of consequences which were undesirable and so therefore we need to look at it very carefully and judiciously...”