Irregular procurement processes and poor financial management by the State IT Agency (SITA) have delayed IT projects and cost the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) millions more than it originally budgeted for.
Despite cancelling two projects with SITA this year and failing to achieve targets set out for its IT projects, the department says it will continue to use SITA's services.
Financial statements in the department's 2008/9 annual report reveal that irregular expenditure, totalling R198.2 million, was incurred. Of this, R130.6 million was incurred due to non-compliance of procurement processes by SITA.
Despite project delays and bungled tender processes, Home Affairs director-general Mavuso Msimang attributes delays and failure to meet targets to “a lack of resources and bureaucracy”.
The department, which listed over 20 IT projects during its last financial year, failed to achieve targets on 15 of these.
Msimang admits there are concerns within the department, but has declined to lay any blame, saying only that solutions would be found. The office of the auditor-general, however, says it has advised the DHA to engage the minister of public service and administration, “who has the authority to regularise the processes within the government IT agency”.
“Information systems [within the department] made some improvements in delivery of services and systems, but have continued to encounter major capacity problems. As serious, is the fact that the department has to replace a number of large systems that are outdated and this will require funding above that which has been allocated in the current budget cycle,” says Msimang.
Cancelled projects
The department cancelled a tender to install a virtual private network for its offices, saying SITA failed to deliver on the project - the second project cancelled with SITA in a year.
In September, the DHA announced it would cancel its smart card ID tender, saying lengthy delays in the awarding of the tender by SITA would no longer be tolerated.
The department says the open tender process for the supply of the smart cards, which was managed by SITA, was bungled several times. The department added it was in discussions with the National Treasury and is looking to start the process from scratch, but no funding has been secured yet.
Poor reporting
The auditor-general added that, while the department's turnaround strategy has improved systems, the sustainability of the project, along with financial management and internal controls, still needed to improve.
“There continues to be an ineffective automated control environment, supporting transactions from initiation through to authorisation, recording and safeguarding,” says the auditor-general.
Msimang says, despite faulty information systems that did not provide accurate and complete information, the DHA continued to make progress.
“In spite of capacity challenges and the limited funds available to upgrade large systems, the audit findings recognise that the DHA has made substantial progress in strengthening its financial management and controls,” says Msimang.
The Department of Public Service and Administration did not respond to queries by the time of publication.
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