There is no chance that the State IT Agency (SITA) will withdraw its services from any government department. It should rather get its contracts and service level agreements in place, says a high-level source, who wishes not to be named.
The source holds a senior position within the Department of Public Service and Administration, the government department that oversees SITA.
Until the troubled agency sorts out its corporate governance issues and implements the turnaround strategy, it will not have the clout needed to enforce payment for its services, the source claims.
Yesterday, SITA acting CEO Nontobeko Ntsinde told Parliament's public service oversight committee that the agency was owned more than R800 million by various government departments. Ntsinde stated that public service and administration minister Richard Baloyi had the political will to cut off services if payment is not forthcoming.
However, she conceded that contract management was SITA's “Achilles heel” as it could not prove at what price services were being offered and how much these departments had to pay.
Ntsinde fingered the SA National Defence Force and the SA Police Service as being among the worst payers.
She also said many provincial governments were not paying SITA, because no contracts had been put in place.
SITA is government's central IT clearing-house. It is supposed to be the agency responsible for drawing up, issuing and adjudicating tenders related to IT services. However, it has been heavily criticised from within government for its poor performance. This has resulted in some departments bypassing it altogether.
Baloyi told ITWeb recently that the agency's turnaround strategy, which has been in gestation for three years. He said the plan was being finalised and announcements would be made at the upcoming GovTech conference, to be held this month, in Durban.
Corruption has also been a hallmark of SITA's incompetence. Last month, president Jacob Zuma ordered the Special Investigation Unit to probe SITA and a special risk assessment report related to its work with the SA Police Service. This was done as part of a widespread anti-corruption crackdown.
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