Government has seen remarkable progress in the State IT Agency's (SITA's) performance, says public service and administration minister Richard Baloyi.
Speaking at the annual GovTech conference, being held this week in Durban, he said SITA is well apace in the implementation of its turnaround strategy that was introduced last year.
“We can proudly say that, having strengthened the governance mechanism and deployed men and women of substance at the top management of the agency, we have now begun to see remarkable progress in SITA's performance.”
The minister explained that the progress was gauged in achieving the outcomes of ensuring quality ICT service delivery to the public sector; becoming a proficient lead agency in public sector ICT; managing integrated public sector ICT supply chain management; ensuring competitive pricing and financial sustainability; being an effective ICT regulator; enabling effective governance and monitoring; and becoming an employer of choice.
However, just three months ago, during his budget speech at the National Council of Provinces, Baloyi said the department had acknowledged SITA's poor performance.
“After extensive consultation with stakeholders... we resolved that serious interventions were required to address the challenges faced by SITA.”
The agency was initiated in 1999 to ensure government benefits through bulk purchasing of ICT goods and services; delivers e-government services; re-engineers the business processes to improve service delivery; and establishes an ICT skills development plan.
Partnering industry
“I am most grateful to the normalising and growing troika relationship between SITA, the Government IT Officer's Council (GITOC) and the office of the government CIO.”
“Like the troika, the ICT industry also confirmed they too are into this as active players to do business, but also contribute in further strengthening the IT community.”
Connected government implies improving the internal workings of the various public sector institutions, the ICT systems they use to better manage workflow and process, to eliminate duplication and bureaucracies to ensure faster turnaround times, said the minister.
“This is at the core of SITA's mandate of harnessing technology to achieve all that.”
Input please
During a government-industry engagement at the conference, several steps were identified as the way forward in encouraging a partnership approach to helping SITA fulfil its mandate.
Some of the steps include the industry being given an opportunity to engage with the implementation of the SITA turnaround strategy and to provide input into the development of the government-wide ICT strategy.
Government must also finalise the engagement on the introduction of the restraint of trade post employment in the ICT sector and a code of good practice must be introduced in the ICT sector.
Also, the SITA-developed SMME strategy must be rolled out, to take care of enterprise development and manage barriers to entry into the ICT business.
Baloyi said government's expectations are that the partnership with the industry will also commit to several outcomes, including contributing to the development of the indigenous IT industry, the development of SMMEs, and job creation.
“These outcomes are key milestones for SITA as the prime system integrator of government. The key mandate to the PSI [prime system integrator] is to improve citizens' access to government services in a cost-effective and efficient manner.”
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