SITA shrugs off concerns

By Audra Mahlong for SITA
Johannesburg, 06 Jul 2009

The Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA) has brushed off concerns of management woes and business process issues at the State Information Technology Agency (SITA). It says the transformation of the agency is under way.

Addressing Parliament on the high turnover of CEOs at the agency, minister Richard Baloyi said he believed that, collectively, the executive could carry the organisation forward. The challenges facing SITA regarding its public image and issues around having only an acting CEO for some time would not impact the running of the organisation, he said.

The agency is being run by a team of three senior staff, assisting one another. Chief of strategic service Moses Mthimunye has taken over from Femke Pienaar, after her term as acting CEO expired. The other two team members are Ramabele Magona Nthithe, chief of shared services, and Egshaan Khan, SITA's CIO.

“The public is well aware that SITA had been operating for some time with only acting CEOs. During its 10 years of existence, there had been more than 10 CEOs. We are committed to investigating why this was so, and will provide a full report back to the committee.”

Following the establishment of a ministerial task team in January for an agency-wide overhaul, Baloyi said the agency is on its way to successfully implementing its mandate. He added that it was important to acknowledge challenges, but also to show what was being done in order to address the challenges. He noted that, despite the fact that SITA was running on acting capacity and diminished capacity at board level, he was confident it was able to deliver with its present team.

“The annual report would indicate SITA is indeed afloat. Nothing would be hidden and all unanswered questions would be dealt with, as everything done was in the interest of the state.”

Financial concerns

In her budget presentation, Femke Pienaar, chief of business operations at SITA, noted the agency wanted to generate R4.5 billion as revenue. The bulk of SITA's capital expenditure had been spent on network infrastructure, and its hosting environment and operating expenditure had been 16.8% of revenue. Pienaar noted it aims to push this down to 15%.

She said R338 million had been purely for the upgrade of infrastructure and the hosting environment. As part of its capital expenditure budget, R129 million had been allocated to computer programs, while network equipment received R168 million. Mainframe programmes received R12 million, while computer equipment was allocated R24 million.

Pienaar stated there is a dilemma in relation to its financial sustainability management.

“On the one hand, government wanted to reduce the costs of doing business through IT, but on the other hand, SITA generated all its revenue by offering services to government.”

Pienaar noted that as a result, there would be a drive to extend its services more into the local authority sphere, although this was not within the agency's mandated objectives. She noted SITA believed it would support government's public service drive if it could also get the local authorities to connect to its network.

Transformation drive

Pienaar also noted that, following public criticism on business practices and tender processes, SITA had initiated a procurement transformation programme. The highest priority programme was the finalisation of the implementation of its enterprise resource planning program, focusing on host optimisation, standardisation, security, and full control over corruption issues. The agency is also in the process of decentralising procurement, aiming to establish tenders in the provinces to aid local companies, she said.

The agency recognised that, in order to optimise its control environment, it still needed to standardise processes. A programme aiming to ensure everyone complied with these measures had been initiated.

Pienaar stated SITA now runs the core backbone of the Neotel/Intel new-generation networks, and the access layer on the Telkom side. The agency also has a virtual private network running on the Telkom/Intel infrastructure and fibres. At present, the agency is reassessing the cost-effectiveness of having a split between the two current fixed-line operators and would assess whether services by Telkom and Intel should remain separate.

SITA and Government Communication Information Systems had also together identified that a national government IT plan is critical, and they are hoping to work with all provinces to define this plan, she said.