SITA must prove R62m debt

The State IT Agency (SITA) is owed R62 million by the Department of Correctional Services (DCS).

The department has also just been investigated for wasteful expenditure of about R95 million for IT systems.

The agency and the DCS presented the issues to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Correctional Services last week.

SITA's presentation says delays in payments by the department will continue accumulating interest. A task team has now been formed by the DCS to reconcile the account, which is currently at R62 million, according to SITA.

However, the department said the disputed amount of outstanding invoices is R34.5 million. It added that its challenges with SITA payments include consolidation of invoices; receiving invoices that differ from service-level agreements; descriptions on the invoices not matching the services rendered; credit notes being removed from monthly statements; and a lack of supporting documents for payments.

The situation is deadlocked, with the DCS demanding supporting documentation before it can pay, and SITA not being sure if this can be supplied.

Committee chairperson Vincent Smith said the committee never agreed to a contingent liability budget for the DCS.

So the question is where the DCS will find the money if SITA comes up with the supporting documentation. He told DCS and SITA that they were both responsible for the expenditure.

Members said the committee would not approve a contingency budget. The DCS has to account for the money as it is unacceptable for funds to be rolled over for five years.

SITA executive of ICT service Mmakgosi Mosupi said SITA has copies of the invoices, but the DCS wants original documents and the agency can't write the debt off from its books.

However, Siphiwe Sokhela, DCS CFO, said SITA needs to prove the debt.

SITA said IT issues at the department include licence renewal, and virtual private network (VPN) instalment.

The chairperson pointed out that IT was the lifeblood of the DCS, with serious consequences for service delivery.

SITA said IT infrastructure in the DCS would be upgraded by providing server rooms, cabling and telephony. Tenders have been issued. 400 VPN sites and local area network infrastructure would be provided for correctional centres in the Western Cape.

SITA said it would avail key members to be interviewed for a forensic investigation into previous IT procurement.

In late May, the committee discovered an amount of wasteful expenditure on projects that were abandoned or so misconstrued that they were incapable of being integrated with other IT systems in the department, according to Democratic Alliance shadow correctional services minister James Selfe.

He added that the extent of the wasteful expenditure is between R90 million and R95 million. The audit has been completed and the report is now being interrogated.

The agency said it would cooperate with the DCS and service provider Dimension Data on the Remand Detainee Offender Management System (RDOMS) that had stalled.

The purpose of RDOMS is to provide a single version of an inmate; however it is not yet running.

Smith said nothing had been done since 2008. He asked what was being done to fix the RDOMS or find a substitute for it.

The chairperson explained that profiles on offenders are needed. It would not do to have people awaiting trial for one offence, to be released for another case. There have to be facts about possible other charges the offender faces.

Selfe says there are connectivity issues with RDOMS, which needs to function on an intranet.

“The system captures offender details. This is largely to combat identity theft, which is a big issue. Petty criminals go in for more serious crimes, while the actual serious criminals are released.”

He explains that RDOMS is important because it will ensure all information points talk to each other and it will enable the same inmate information to be accessed at any place in the country.