Communications minister Solly Malatsi has known as on the Public Service Fee to research issues on the State IT Company (Sita) following a website go to to authorities’s centralised IT organisation on Wednesday.
There are a number of points at Sita inflicting the company to fail at delivering on its mandate, Malatsi mentioned in a press release late on Wednesday.
Malati’s transfer follows criticism of Sita by house affairs minister Leon Schreiber final month, through which he bemoaned the company’s inefficiency, saying delays are a “important impediment” holding up house affairs’ ambition to remodel itself right into a digitally enhanced organisation.
In his assertion, Malatsi mentioned: “Sita faces mounting challenges, together with governance considerations, irregular procurement practices, operational inefficiencies and an alarming deterioration in service supply. These points, if left unaddressed, pose a menace to the company’s mission and its capacity to ship worth to South Africans.”
‘Urgency’
Malatsi mentioned the important thing points are:
- Service supply failures: Quite a few consumer departments, together with the ministries of police, house affairs and justice, have sought exemptions from utilizing Sita companies because of its alleged inefficiency. “This displays the company’s incapability to satisfy expectations and undermines belief in its capabilities,” mentioned Malatsi.
- Governance challenges: Allegations of corruption, maladministration and interference at board degree have raised pink flags about accountability and transparency throughout the organisation.
- Management instability: Excessive turnover at govt and senior administration ranges has left important positions stuffed by folks in an appearing capability. Divisions throughout the govt committee are resulting in organisational instability and poor resolution making, he mentioned.
- Irregular procurement practices: Sita’s alleged failure to observe correct procurement procedures has resulted in contracts being irregularly awarded, tarnishing Sita’s status and elevating authorized considerations.
- Deteriorating audit outcomes: Sita did not submit its 2023/2024 annual report for tabling, highlighting a “worrying decline in monetary accountability”.
- Missed efficiency targets: Persistently “underwhelming” outcomes towards predetermined aims have additional eroded confidence within the company.
“Recognising the urgency of those issues, I’ve formally requested the Public Service Fee to research a variety of points affecting Sita,” mentioned Malatsi. The PSC has been mandated to research the problems recognized at Sita in addition to decide the basis reason behind operational inefficiencies throughout the organisation.
The problems at Sita aren’t new, which has been the positioning of endemic corruption prior to now. TechCentral reported in June that well-placed sources throughout the organisation had been involved about advert hoc adjustments to procurement procedures with out these “new guidelines” being documented in Sita’s procurement insurance policies.
Learn: Unease over ructions at Sita
The sources – with whom TechCentral met – mentioned Sita’s bid procurement committee (BPC), which had been required to hunt board concurrence for contracts price greater than R50-million, had been given the ability to approve bids with out the necessity for this oversight, as much as a worth of R300-million. The sources alleged that these adjustments had been designed to speed up the looting of Sita’s coffers previous to the election in Could, the place it was anticipated that political management of the communications ministry might change fingers.
A choice to vary governance protocols, the sources warned, weakened the board at a time when Sita was going by a troublesome interval with an interim board, elevating questions on how the chance of the change was assessed.
Sita’s present board woes return to former communications minister, and now deputy minister to Malatsi, Mondli Gungubele’s July 2023 resolution to sack some board members, main others to subsequently resign, over then-Sita MD Bongani Mabaso’s wage. Mabaso subsequently left Sita and returned to the personal sector as Altron’s group chief know-how officer.
Following a protracted authorized battle, the supreme courtroom of attraction in July denied Gungubele’s utility for depart to attraction an earlier resolution ordering the sacked board to be reinstated. However occasions that occurred within the interim, such because the appointment of Simphiwe Dzengwa as appearing MD, had been trigger for concern amongst Sita stakeholders, together with its largest union, the Public Servants Affiliation (PSA).
“It has by no means occurred earlier than that any person from outdoors [an organisation] is introduced in to behave as an MD with out trying internally to see if there may be anyone able to taking up the place,” then PSA spokesman Zamani Dladla informed TechCentral on the time.
“Additionally, once we have a look at [Dzengwa’s] profile, we see that he has shut proximity to politicians, which is what worries us most.”
Previous to becoming a member of Sita, Dzengwa was particular advisor to the minister of small enterprise growth, Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams, who was minister of communications – which has oversight of Sita – from 2018 to 2021.
Malatsi mentioned the investigation will assist enhance accountability and improve good governance at Sita, guaranteeing the organisation can ship on its mandate. “This course of is not going to solely restore accountability and belief but in addition set the company on a trajectory in the direction of fulfilling its function as a cornerstone of South Africa’s digital transformation,” he mentioned. – © 2024 NewsCentral Media
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