A project for the implementation of 112 as a single national emergency number that has been on the cards for several years is expected to be revived in August, with the issuing of a new tender for the national call centre.
A similar tender issued by the Department of Communications (DOC) in April was cancelled soon after it was issued, bringing the controversial project to a halt.
According to DOC spokesperson Siyabulela Qoza, the project has been delayed because of the regulatory and compliance requirements that projects implemented as public private partnerships (PPPs) have to go through. "During that process, we remodelled the PPP to include a call centre for digital terrestrial television (DTT)," says Qoza. "We did this to reduce the fixed costs that are associated with call centres. The two call centres will run different software programs."
Qoza says the tender that is set to be issued next month will be a combined tender that includes the additional requirement to provide a solution for DTT. The two call centres will, therefore, be housed in the same location, even though they will run different software.
Troubled past
The 112 centre project has been on the cards for years, but has been cancelled and restarted several times. In February, Themba Phiri, acting deputy director-general of the Presidential National Commission on Information Society and Development at the DOC, said there was no clear timeframe for when the number will be implemented. This is after the DOC cancelled the project in October last year.
There has also been talk about possibly linking the 112 centre with the presidential hotline, but it is unclear whether this is still a possibility.
The DOC underspent R711.5 million last year, of which R117 million wasn't spent due to the 112 centre project being terminated.
Millions of rands went into the 10111 emergency centres, with the centres spending R34 million in the 2008/9 financial year, having been allocated only R29 million. In October last year, the auditor-general's report showed failure within the 10111 centres, with 58% of reported incidents by citizens logged via the 10111 line simply not being documented.
Meanwhile, the Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA) is reportedly probing irregularities around the initial 112 centre pilot project that allegedly cost R80 million, and was stuck in pilot mode for more than four years. However, DPSA spokesperson Tuso Zibula was unable to confirm this.
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