While some may view his actions regarding the State Information Technology Agency (SITA) as an indication of lost hope, communications minister Solly Malatsi believes the entity’s inefficiencies can be fixed.
SITA is one of 11 entities under the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies (DCDT) umbrella, which is headed by Malatsi.
The agency can be likened to a “problem child” for the minister, given its ongoing history of governance challenges, delayed tender awards, long delivery times, poor communication, high prices and ongoing staff attrition.
Grievances surrounding these issues have been continually vocalised by client departments, leading to a May decision that empowered state entities to appoint their own IT service providers rather than being obligated to use SITA.
Speaking to ITWeb on the sidelines of GovTech 2025 − the SITA-run public sector ICT conference, held last week, in Durban − Malatsi said he “definitely believes it [SITA] can be turned around”.
He added: “It’s going to take a couple of things. First, when you consider where the institution was over a year ago, to where it is just in terms of the SITA-related ‘drama’ on governance, we have an interim board that has come in at a crucial time to provide [guidance].
“It takes time toturn around years of inefficiencies, years of nonchalance towards basic governance and compliance issues, as well as some of the unethical actions related to procurement.
“The reality is that where there is extended periods of no accountability, wrongdoing thrives. It is important to have the right people, doing the right things – both in management and on the board – being very vigilant in making sure all the accounting and good governance prescripts are always upheld.”
The second part to this, he continued, is SITA’s delivery capacity. “The only way to rehabilitate the stature of SITA within the government ecosystem of ICT is for the entity to deliver to the satisfaction of its clients, consistently so, and within reasonable costs. This is so that clients receive full value for money.
Setting boundaries
“I think the role that it can continue to play is equally around the norms and standards that guide government’s ICT needs. There will always be some government departments that will rely on SITA, because for them ICT is not their main forte.
“It’s important to recognise that we live in a society where solutions, particularly for innovation and digitisation, exist within the public and private sector, and government departments should not be hamstrung to look for solutions that meet their needs, within cost and reasonable turnaround times.”
While ICT often requires rapid response, the state ICT procurement arm has largely moved at a snail’s pace, leaving some government departments extremely frustrated with the turnaround times.
SITA sits as a central pillar of government's IT procurement. It is also responsible for developing, operating and/or maintaining ICT services consumed by government departments.
Its existence, however, has been called into question over the years.
Instead of continuous strong leaders, the agency has had less than three executive heads stay the duration of their employment term, with many leaving within three months to a little over a year.
Dr Bongani Andy Mabaso was the agency’s 22nd managing director (MD) and its first permanent MD following the resignation of Dr Setumo Mohapi in March 2019. Mabaso was at SITA for only eight months before requesting to be released early from his employment contract. SITA is currently on the hunt for a new MD.
The entity is also facing several investigations, including by the Special Investigating Unit, the Public Service Commission and Public Protector, as maladministration and corruption lingers.
Seeking solutions
Mohapi previously said the only way SITA will have a chance to do what it was supposed to do is to take the tender operations out of the entity. “The noise will follow the tender ops,” he said. “Take tender ops to the National Treasury or the supply chain management [SCM] of the government departments and let them do their own SCM.”
Malatsi candidly said: “No one, not even SITA itself, will claim it is functioning as optimally as it should – there is acknowledgement across the board for that. The key challenge is how it should be repositioned.”
According to Malatsi, conversation about repositioning SITA has been happening for some time within government, including discussions on whether it should focus on norms and standards, as indicated earlier.
“Everywhere in government where there is large-scale procurement involving multimillion rands, there are always shenanigans. Those shenanigans happen because opportunism and corruption meet there. Unfortunately, there have been instances where no action was taken against that.
“One of the things I’ve come to realise is the damage that has been done to our public service and how endemic State Capture is breaking good governance in state institutions.”
Malatsi said his department has a responsibility to ensure it focuses on doing the right things for SITA to continue to live.
“We equally have a responsibility to enable − because we are an enabling department − the rest of government to meet its needs instantly.”
He continued: “The future of SITA lies in its ability to satisfy its clients with quality services, just like every other entity or any other service provider. The average person sticks with a service provider because they deliver quality services at a satisfactory price.
“If SITA continues, or is in a position to deliver quality services to its clients, at prices clients believe are reasonable and affordable, its future will be secured.”
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