IT bodies to merge

By Christelle du Toit, ITWeb senior journalist

Johannesburg, 04 Aug 2008

The Information Technology Association (ITA) is looking to merge with at least two other industry bodies in the next couple of months in a move to become an over-arching industry body.

The organisation`s new president, Adam Rabie, says the fragmented nature of the IT industry, to date, has led to it being underrepresented in government policy drives.

In addition, he says questionable governance practices by the likes of the State IT Agency (SITA) have gone unquestioned for too long, because of this under-representation.

"We`ll be merging with the EIF (the Electronic Industries Federation) and the South African Communications Forum (SACF) to offer much better value for our members, and strengthen our voice in government and business," says Rabie.

"There have been a number of industry associations, not all as effective at doing what they should be doing, and us being the oldest, we want to lobby as one voice."

The ITA has been in existence since 1934 and merged with the IT Users Council in mid-2000. It represents about 150 IT companies, ranging from large multinationals, to small and medium-sized enterprises.

Political immaturity

Rabie says the need for an over-arching industry body can be seen in the lack of government drive for IT policy.

"There has been no progress on the ICT charter for the last two years," he says. "The telcos get a lot of attention, because they make a lot of noise."

He says the voice of industry also needs to be heard when it comes to good governance - for example, with the annual SITA GovTech conference, where GijimaAST is the primary sponsor.

Rabie says not only is it not SITA`s role to be hosting conferences, but it is questionable to do so in partnership with GijimaAST, which was the beneficiary of a R2.5 billion government contract for the Department of Home Affairs, which is now being probed by Parliament.

"I might be shooting myself in the foot by saying SITA and GijimaAST [should not be partnering on this event], as they may shoot back not at me as president of the ITA, but as director of Bytes Technology Group, but industry needs to be more proactive," says Rabie.

He maintains that the broader political environment in SA, as far as business is concerned, is still "problematic" and "not as mature as we would like it to be", but says this is where the ITA could play a valuable ole.

"It`s about understanding roles and responsibilities and where you need to play," says Rabie.

The skills issue

In the meantime, the ITA continues to work with various government department on quantifying the country`s skills shortages.

However, Rabie says the newly-elected management council is of the view that there is not necessarily a skills shortage, but rather market distortions at play, due to factors like job-hopping and over-pricing.

"Companies are looking for people with loads of experience, but if someone has had five jobs in two years, how much experience can they pick up?" he asks, adding that each job hop brings with it an increase in remuneration.

He suggest that scorecard requirements for training, therefore, be amended to include factors like actual job placement so that companies are forced to try and retain skills more proactively, a topic he is to broach with the Departments of Trade and Industry and Communications later this week.

The ITA also wants to embark on a career expo, either later this year or early next year, to market IT as an attractive career to young people, and so addressing the skills pool IT companies can draw from.