The State IT Agency (SITA) denies GijimaAst will have an advantage when bidding for government technology tenders. The ICT firm's new boss, Jonas Bogoshi, was previously head of strategic services at SITA.
A heated discussion erupted around this issue on day two of SITA's GovTech conference, in Cape Town, last week.
A number of delegates expressed concern that Bogoshi's three years with SITA and close connections with many SITA executives will give GijimaAst an unfair advantage when competing for big government contracts.
The fact that GijimaAst was the diamond sponsor of the week-long GovTech event, and that Bogoshi was given platform time shortly before deputy president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka at the opening function, was also not lost on the 1 500 delegates.
SITA COO Noedine Isaacs-Mpulo made an unscheduled appearance, moving to dispel the concerns.
"Jonas Bogoshi is a person of extremely high integrity. I will put my head on the block for this," she said.
"We are certainly not in the pocket of GijimaAst; there is a formal process [with any SITA tender], and that process is done by points."
Bogoshi recently said in an interview that the points system involves quantifiable evaluation, and cannot be influenced by any personal connections.
He added that roughly a quarter of GijimaAst's revenue comes from the public sector.
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