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SITA board backs SMME contribution in ICT

Simnikiwe Mzekandaba
By Simnikiwe Mzekandaba, IT in government editor
Johannesburg, 28 Apr 2017
Zukile Nomvete, SITA board member and chairperson.
Zukile Nomvete, SITA board member and chairperson.

The State IT Agency (SITA) board has taken a strong stance to support and improve the participation of small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) in SA's ICT space.

So said SITA chairman Zukile Nomvete, speaking during a board meeting this week, marking the start of the company's new financial year.

According to Nomvete, there are key imperatives in the transformational journey of the organisation that needed to be built on.

Part of this was responding to government's call for SMMEs to be the game-changers for the country's economic growth, job creation, entrepreneurial opportunities, and investment in a new kind of workforce driven by ICT, he stated.

Accordingly, the government agency embarked on its first enterprise development programme. Over a four-month period, 13 SMMEs, including SITA suppliers, received training through the programme and graduated at the end of March, the chairman notes.

"Already, these SMMEs are reaping the rewards. For example, one supplier after the SITA course was independently able to pitch her ideas in the North West in a multimillion-rand deal and was successful in her home province," said Nomvete.

In an interview with ITWeb, Jabulile Tlhako, chief procurement officer at SITA, said the programme is in line with supporting SMMEs and accelerating enterprise supply development.

"As part of our mandate, we have to drive transformation in the ICT sector because we are the agency that advises government departments on ICT and also procure on behalf of government. We have to drive transformation; it is part of our mandate.

"If we don't make sure we have new players in the ICT space, we would have failed South Africa. If SITA doesn't do it, nobody can. We are the main agency in government for ICT in SA."

Seamless procurement

As the agency set up to consolidate government IT spend and advisory, and make sure all departments have one point of contact in terms of ICT, SITA has been plagued by a number of problems over the years.

Last year, disgruntled employees turned to the Public Protector, requesting an investigation into allegations of maladministration, fruitless and wasteful expenditure at SITA. At the time, the agency said it was unaware of the complaint.

Other issues range from lack of top-level stability, allegations of corruption, as well as claims of irregular procurement practices.

To reform historically administrative and manually-driven procurement processes, last year SITA announced plans to modernise its procurement systems via what it calls a gCommerce portal.

The portal automates the whole procurement process, starting with issuing tenders online, evaluation, adjudication and awarding of tenders, as well as contracts management.

At the end of March, the system was up and running, and on 1 April, the government IT buying firm went live with the first end-to-end procurement process.

According to SITA, the gCommerce platform will provide government with access to an online catalogue of pre-negotiated government transversal contracts related to the purchasing of computers, computer peripherals and consumables.

Nomvete explains: "As SITA, we are also moving to digitise procurement, and as such, SITA is moving to a gCommerce platform that is an online transacting platform that provides government entities with an online buying portal for all SITA and National Treasury transversal contracts."

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