The State IT Agency's (SITA's) third attempt to procure a government payroll system, to be used throughout national and provincial departments, has failed. The solution, which must be developed from scratch by the successful bidder, is scheduled to be ready for testing by the end of 2013.
The payroll solution is an essential component of National Treasury's multibillion-rand Integrated Financial Management System (IFMS) project, operating as a joint-initiative alongside the Department of Public Service and Administration and SITA.
Approved by Cabinet in 2005, the programme aims to replace the numerous disparate, inadequate and/or outdated systems employed by the public service with a single solution aligned to the legislation, policies and directives informing management of public sector organisations. The final solution will be mandatory for national and provincial departments encompassing supply chain management, financial management, HR management and business intelligence.
The payroll module first went out to tender in August 2011 in a four-part advertisement alongside the core financial system, inventory management system, and data exchange system, bringing an end to IFMS' outstanding software requirements. The decision to pursue only bespoke offerings for these systems, despite the use of customised off the shelf solutions for the procurement, HR and business intelligence applications was a source of controversy. Critics pointed out that choosing to develop these applications from scratch would be considerably more expensive and less effective than what could be acquired from established open source or proprietary specialists in the various fields.
The extensive expectations of the tenders also drew fire, particularly the non-negotiable nine-month development deadline allocated to all but the data exchange system, which only had seven months allocated for development. The questioning of the tender requirements resulted in the submission deadline being extended three times before finally closing in October.
The payroll portion of that tender was cancelled and reissued the following month due to "governance issues". Two weeks later, SITA COO Khumbudzo Ntshavheni revealed the organisation "had to" reissue the tender as none of the bids submitted qualified to enter the technical assessment portion of the bid process.
The second tender closed in December of the same year and received nine bids, despite attracting 48 delegates to its compulsory briefing.
In the last tender bulletin of last year, SITA announced its decision to cancel that tender and a third advertisement was placed for the payroll requirement.
Amitha Ramlal, SITA's acting corporate communications lead, said the cancellation was "due to internal processes". Additionally, work being carried out internally within SITA had resulted in changes to the scope of the tender, which was now reflected in the new tender, she explained.
Nonetheless, this third payroll tender was suddenly withdrawn in the run up to the compulsory briefing, which was supposed to take place last week Friday. All documentation related to this tender, including the advertisement, has been removed from the organisation's Web site, including its consolidated list, which features numerous tenders that have been cancelled or withdrawn.
Ramlal did not respond to numerous requests for comment about this latest development.
While SITA continues its hunt for a government payroll system, the public sector has to make do with the PERSAL system, which is particularly problematic. A moratorium placed on the purchase of any IT system that would be included in IFMS in 2006 has resulted in a system that is a source of concern for Parliament, the auditor-general, and the ministers of finance and public service and administration. A clean up of the data on the PERSAL system is under way.
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