The chair of parliament’s portfolio committee on communications, Khusela Diko, has taken Enterprise Management South Africa CEO Busi Mavuso to job over feedback she made suggesting IT procurement in authorities needs to be decentralised.
Diko’s feedback had been in response to an opinion piece penned by Mavuso and printed by TechCentral final week.
Within the article, Mavuso argued that efforts to reform the embattled State IT Company (Sita) – which is remitted by regulation to obtain IT services and products for presidency completely – have failed, largely because of events “politicising the matter”.
Mavuso recommended the decentralisation of IT procurement away from Sita in its place, a transfer that might finish the company’s “monopoly” over authorities IT.
In an X submit on Thursday, Diko challenged Mavuso to call any enterprise that’s a member of BLSA that permits its working firms to “run their very own IT methods exterior of what group prescribes” that they use.
“Can the CEO give one instance from their many members of a company firm that permits its totally different divisions/enterprise items to run their very own IT methods exterior of what [the] group prescribes? The place usually it’s a free for all, HQ (headquarters) doesn’t give path and directives of IT methods the corporate should run. Like ba everybody within the firm simply wakes up and goes to purchase no matter IT methods they wish to purchase and we’ll see later as a result of ‘we should finish the monopoly’,” stated Diko caustically.
‘Bypassing the regulation’
“The flexibility of presidency to embrace and work with world-class IT methods is simply too essential to politicise the difficulty. But, sadly, efforts to reform Sita have now turn into embroiled in get together politics. Proposals by communications minister Solly Malatsi to alter laws to empower state entities to nominate their very own IT service suppliers relatively than being pressured to make use of Sita have been met with sturdy opposition from MPs. That’s regardless of the brand new laws having sturdy help from ministers throughout the federal government of nationwide unity,” stated Mavuso in her column.
Learn: It’s time to finish Sita’s monopoly over state IT
Malatsi’s plan, launched to parliament in March, to permit authorities departments to supply their very own IT options with out Sita’s involvement was additionally met with criticism from Diko, who accused him of “bypassing the regulation” and in search of to “devolve Sita’s powers” by suggesting interventions that minimise Sita’s involvement as an alternative of fixing the organisation.
“The minister has advantage on among the points that he desires to deal with, and he’s effectively inside his proper to take action. However he has to observe correct course of and follow the letter and spirit of the regulation,” Diko stated on the time.
In the meantime, it got here to gentle in parliament earlier this week that Mpumalanga’s fundamental schooling division overpaid when procuring 22 laptops for some its managers at a price of R2-million. Every laptop computer value the division simply over R90 000.
Sita denied any involvement within the matter, suggesting the Mpumalanga fundamental schooling division had not adopted its procurement prescripts. Though Sita officers met with the division on Wednesday, the truth that its procurement protocols had been bypassed could name into query the organisation’s skill to supervise authorities IT spend successfully. – © 2025 NewsCentral Media
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