The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) seems keen to end its legal battle with Valor IT by settling out of court, after the IT company was axed from implementing a R153 million system overhaul at the Companies and Intellectual Properties Office (Cipro).
However, while the department's lawyers are scheduled to meet with Valor IT's representatives this afternoon to settle the issue, no details on the implementation, or whether Cipro's suspended CIO and CEO will be charged, have been made available by the DTI.
Valor IT took legal action to force the department to uphold the contract to complete an overhaul of Cipro's legacy IT systems. Last month, the DTI pulled the plug on the contract for the implementation of the new enterprise content management (ECM) system, after an investigation found evidence of tender rigging and corrupt practices at the agency.
Valor IT chairman Josias Molele says the department's lawyers have been instructed by a judge to meet with Valor IT's lawyers. According to Molele, the department has asked him to think about what Valor IT would want to agree to a settlement.
Molele says the department's offer to settle indicates that it erred in cancelling the contract between Valor IT and Cipro.
However, he does not have any hopes that the meeting, scheduled for 2pm, will go ahead. He points out that meetings scheduled for last Friday and on Monday this week did not go ahead, because the department's lawyers did not pitch.
Give it back
Molele says he will not settle for a sum of money to just walk away; he wants to continue to implement the ECM system at Cipro. In addition, says Molele, he has continued to develop the system on Valor IT's infrastructure and is almost ready for implementation.
Cipro desperately needs the IT overhaul to be in place by October, which is when the new Companies Act comes into force. Without it, the only registrar of companies in SA will not be able to cope with new requirements of the Act, because its old systems are not built to cater for the new functions it will have to implement.
Despite the looming deadline, the department has yet to provide any clarity as to what it is doing to resolve the situation. This morning, neither Cipro nor the department were available to comment.
However, the department has previously indicated that it does not wish to discuss “legal matters through the media”.
Sidwell Medupe, director of media and public relations, said earlier this month: “These matters are handled between the lawyers of Valor IT and our lawyers and we would like to allow the court processes to unfold and be finalised in that space.”
Medupe also said the department was proceeding with the development of the enterprise content management system “as this is needed for our operations and to deliver services to the public”. He did not elaborate on how this would be done and there is, as yet, no clarity on what is happening at Cipro.
In addition, more than two months have gone by since trade and industry minister Rob Davies said he would charge Cipro's suspended CEO Keith Sendwe and CIO Michael Twum-Darko. However, there has since been no word as to whether the two have been charged, or with what.
Makes sense
Andricus van der Westhuizen, Democratic Alliance deputy shadow minister of trade and industry, says he asked the minister why the two have not been charged, and has not yet received a response.
He also asked several other written questions, including when the project will go out on tender again.
Van der Westhuizen is not surprised that the department is looking at settling out of court, having also heard talk that it may do so. He says a lengthy legal battle would prevent the DTI from moving on with the implementation of the system for a year or two.
The department is likely to request that Valor IT walks away from the contract, and hands over everything that it has developed, speculates Van der Westhuizen.
However, he points out that the DTI's lawyers have a reputation for scheduling meetings and not pitching, indicating that the will to settle may be there, but not the capacity.
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Cipro clean-up flounders
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