The scandal-hit State IT Agency (SITA) has removed Moses Mtimunye as head of its acting CEO team, creating further confusion about the agency's strategy to deal with its leadership woes.
In June, Mtimunye was appointed to lead the three-member CEO team, which also included Ramabele Magona-Nthite, chief of shared services, and SITA CIO Egshaan Khan.
According to insiders, however, Mtimunye was removed by the agency's board of directors from the CEO team last week and replaced by Magona-Nthite. He retains his position as chief of strategic services at SITA.
Mtimunye's removal has not been officially confirmed, as the Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA) initially denied it, then, subsequently, referred all queries to SITA's media unit. The media unit, in turn, did not respond to questions from ITWeb.
However, the agency's Web site - under the section “Company Structure” - confirms the reshuffle, also showing that Khan is no longer part of the team. Instead, the three-member CEO team now comprises Magona-Nthite, company secretary Estelle Strydom, and acting chief audit executive Razak Alli.
Neither SITA nor the DPSA would comment on the company structure displayed on the Web site. Questions to Mtimunye's office have also gone unanswered.
Link to report?
Mtimunye's removal comes shortly after a controversial internal risk assessment report on SITA's procurement processes surfaced last month, uncovering large-scale fraud and corruption plaguing the agency.
The report, compiled by enterprise risk assessment firm Henderson Solutions, was commissioned by Mtimunye and was handed to public service and administration minister Richard Baloyi and SITA executives in April. Sources have pointed to a possible connection between Mtimunye's commissioning of the report and his removal as acting CEO.
The DPSA has yet to comment on the findings of the Henderson Solutions investigation, and has previously denied it tried to bury the report.
The news of Mtimunye's removal from the CEO spot comes in light of the resignation of SITA deputy chairperson and government CIO Michelle Williams. Williams stepped down from the SITA board last week. No reasons were given for her resignation, but the Henderson Solutions report did assert that her stake in a private sector company is a conflict of interest.
Upon taking up the public service and administration portfolio last year, Baloyi did threaten to take SITA in hand and indicated that a large-scale purge of management and executive could be on the cards.
It is unknown whether Williams' resignation and the executive reshuffle are the start of this process. Industry is still awaiting the minister's announcement of a turnaround strategy for SITA.
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