The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) filed its response to Valor IT's court application to have a declaratory order granted that would deem its R153 million contract with the Companies and Intellectual Property Organisation (Cipro) valid.
Trade and industry minister Rob Davies said this at a recent press conference, at the Fortune Global Forum, in Cape Town.
“As many know, we wrote a letter to them (Valor IT) to say the contract was being terminated. They started a court action and we filed our answering affidavit on Friday,” Davies said.
He went on to say that government was determined to sort out the Cipro problem.
A forensic investigation earlier this year into the awarding of the contract to Valor IT resulted in the suspension of Cipro CEO Keith Sendwe and CIO Michael Twum-Darko. The department has not indicated whether the two will be criminally charged, after saying earlier that the laying of criminal charges is a possibility.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the DTI has confirmed that work on the project, for the implementation of a new enterprise content management system, had stopped. However, no details were given about whether the project would be ready in time for the implementation of the new Companies Act in September.
“All I can tell you is that work has stopped,” he said.
Cipro, ValorIT and the DTI have been insistent that the full system would be operational by January next year. This was stated in the Parliamentary hearings and in subsequent press releases and statements.
“Often, when stopping or closing a big IT project, far more money can be spent, because that becomes a project in itself,” an industry project manager commented.
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