The recent leeway granted to government departments to bypass the State Information Technology Agency (SITA) when it comes to procuring IT services has received backing from professor Busani Ngcaweni, principal of the National School of Government (NSG).
Ngcaweni was one of the keynote speakers at the Huawei ICT Editors Xchange 2025 gathering that took place yesterday, where he detailed the pace of digital transformation within the public sector.
The NSG is mandated to deliver education, training and development interventions that are relevant to the needs of the public sector.
Responding to ITWeb’s question about the newly-gazetted reforms that give departments flexibility in terms of IT procurement, Ngcaweni said he “fully” supports that.
“It’s great. After all, we are accounting offices. We’ll spend R100 million this year on technology; why must I go through another person to do that? By law, I’m accountable for it.
“What SITA must become is a digital innovation agency of the state, so that they can give us the best advice on what technologies to buy and why, including use-cases, and provide proper advice on different clients within the state. This will be a shift from what they are now, which is just a procurement arm.
“Because we are much closer to what we are looking for, we’ll then be able to make the decisions and be accountable, based on what the PFMA [Public Finance Management Act] says we must do.”
However, the biggest frontier is that government must rapidly scale up the digital capabilities within state departments because they have to be the ones to make the choices. “This is the challenge we have as the National School of Government, because that’s what they must do.
“Although SITA isn’t completely out of the picture, my biggest concern – as someone who spends days in various government departments and SOEs [state-owned enterprises] – is the rate and pace at which we scale up knowledge and understanding inside these public institutions, so that they make the correct decisions.
“I’m accountable and want to make the choices, but the guy next door may not have the ability to design the proper scope and go for technology they need.”
Sometimes described as a “big headache” for public sector CIOs for taking up to six months to provide a service, SITA’s stronghold on ICT procurement for departments has been curtailed.
Communications minister Solly Malatsi last month introduced new rules that allow departments to bypass SITA and procure IT services on their own, if they can demonstrate better alternatives.
While the decision was contentious before it was gazetted, many have advocated for departments’ IT procurement independence and warned against the politicisation of issues affecting SITA.
The state’s IT procurement arm has caused frustration for client departments, particularly the Department of Home Affairs (DHA), which have repeatedly noted dissatisfaction with the agency’s service delivery and capacity. The department has reportedly noted the efforts to sever ties with SITA.
DHA offices frequently experience technology interruptions and network downtime issues, with the blame often placed on SITA’s doorstep. The government IT procurement agency has vehemently refuted some of these claims, saying it has “become an all-too-convenient scapegoat for project failures or inefficiencies”.
Triangular transformation
Ngcaweni explained that the public sector faces a trilogy of digital transformation − which consists of hardware, software and brainware − and technology companies must take this into consideration.
Hardware is a big frontier in the public sector because smart decisions must be made, and often not all public servants are able to decide what to buy and why, he stated.
On software, he said when reading auditor-general reports, there are many cases where government institutions were trying to buy technology, and either the tender process was incorrect, or the type of software being sought was misaligned with the institution’s objectives and services that need to be delivered.
“There is a lot of work that needs to be done to close the gap about the type of software that we buy, because at the end of the day, we are about delivering a service.
“There are some among us, who during the pandemic, bought software for business continuity. Even if people were on [Microsoft] 365, which means they had Teams, they would also buy the most expensive [option] of Zoom. This means they’ve bought different types of software, when they didn’t need to.”
The last part of the trilogy, brainware, is a frontier that the NSG is working on, he noted. It is a code word for culture, skills, training and attitude.
“Brainware focuses on how to make everyone comfortable and effective in an AI [artificial intelligence] ecosystem space; for example, where they can fully and effectively utilise the hardware and software that is available to them.
“In many instances, we’ve got these Rolls Royce systems that we have purchased, and it will be a case of either being uncomfortable with them, or unable to use them and therefore lose value as a result.”
Share