No Refund from SARS for almost 5 Months (are they insolvent???)

I've done my PAYE tax last year in Oct 2021 and a refund was due on 4 Nov 2021. The payment was done but retracted and after silence from SARS for 17 working days, they issued a letter stating I will be audited. This was the first red flag.

Supporting documentation was submitted on 8 Dec 2021 which was acknowledged and this kicked off the 21 working days deadline by SARS to complete the audit. The deadline came and went without any notice from SARS. Second red flag. i did an escalation with SARS mid Jan 2022 and lodged formal complaint with SARS on 31 Jan 2022 with the complaint deadline 21 working days. Still no response from SARS not even the complaints section. Third red flag.

On 24 Feb 2022 SARS issued a letter stating the audit is complete and payment will be made. They then had 7 working days to do the refund. Fast forward to today, 27 March 2022, still no refund done and its almost 5 months since the refund was due. Fourth red flag.

I lodged a complaint at the Tax Ombudsman beginning March 2022 and they issued a notice to SARS to make the refund but alias SARS is ignoring this. Its now been about 2 weeks since this notice was issued.

The SARS act do not make provision for tax payers to penalize SARS when they miss deadlines yet SARS is allowed to penalize tax payers and raise penalties. This Act seriously needs to be reviewed. This is clearly an indication of incompetence and failing SARS systems.