An improved IT infrastructure - which has seen system availability rise from a very unreliable and unstable environment to a 365x24x7 basis - and plain hard work are the main reasons why the South African Revenue Service (SARS) exceeded their revenue collection target in the last financial year, says Deon Louw, director of CURAT Solutions, one of the consultancies employed by SARS to run technical and IT management services.
"The increase in SARS revenue is the result of the new IT systems, new and improved IT management processes, standards and procedures that we, together with other consultancies and SARS business, implemented over the last 2/3 years," says Louw. Part of the MGX Group, CURAT Solutions provides a wide range of consultancy and professional services in the management and IT disciplines.
SARS called upon the private sector for solutions, and a number of companies, CURAT included, were selected.
First employed some four years ago, CURAT`s involvement with SARS has grown from an initial contract with the IT management arena to the Enterprise systems management sections. Currently, seven CURAT consultants are based at SARS, three of which are in management positions, namely enterprise capacity and storage management, network management and systems software support.
"CURAT consultants also make up SARS` MVS systems programmer, systems security, database administration and Computer facilities maintenance engineer," says Louw. "All of these people play an integral part in the technical aspects of running the SARS IT infrastructure."
"The wide range of people, skills and know-how provided include the maintenance, tuning, and upgrading of the systems software for SARS` IBM mainframe system, thereby ensuring optimal use and effectiveness," Louw says.
SARS operations include revenue collection, and all financial functions relating to the department of customs and excise. The stability of their mainframe and network is therefore of the utmost importance, with backups, printing runs for tax forms, reminders and all customs and forms all having to run to a tight schedule.
"CURAT supplies many of the key skills in the enterprise system management area, which ensures that the income tax system, the VAT and PAYE systems are all operationally sound," continues Louw. The number of workstations employed in SARS has risen from 1500 to 9000, creating a vastly increased demand for a nationally based IT system.
The SARS` environment is now at a point where it is the best run state department in the country. In terms of technology and operations efficiency, SARS is at the same level as any of the major banks.
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