The R200-million information technology (IT) modernisation model that was developed by a consultancy firm hired by suspended South African Revenue Services (Sars) commissioner Tom Moyane to revive and restructure the revenue service's IT was never implemented, the Nugent Commission of Inquiry heard on Tuesday.

Consulting firm, Gartner, was hired by Moyane on July 2015 after he halted the Sars modernisation programme in December 2014, three months after he stepped into the position.

Gartner's head of public-sector consulting Michael Lithgow who appeared before the commission chaired by retired judge Robert Nugent, admitted that the R200-million work it did for Sars did not deliver value for money at the revenue service.

"When we came in we were dealing with people that were desperate for change. Can we justify how much money was spent for the work done, right now, no, because half of it is not being implemented as we speak," he said.

Lithgow explained how at the end of phase one they made recommendations and Sars could have acted on those but instead, the institution asked Gartner to do more work, this where where it moved to phase two.

He said all the recommendations which were made to Sars were not implemented.

"I accept we failed because nothing we did was implemented, which for me is distressing. My confidence that even 10 percent of what we recommended was done is low."

Lithgow said one of the causes for the failure of their work, was that Sars had poor leadership, he said there were factions, some stuff were not sure of their roles and some people were resistant to co-operate.

"I wrote a letter to Mr Moyane and made it clear that unless we had strong, committed leadership, the transformation process would not work."

President Cyril Ramaphosa appointed Nugent in June to chair the commission to probe allegations of financial misconduct at Sars, including that it led to a revenue collection shortfall of R50-billion between 2014 and 2018 under Moyane.

Ramaphosa suspended Moyane following a breakdown of trust in his running of the vital organisation.

The commission is expected to resume early next month.