As procurement frustrations persist, the State IT Agency (SITA) is accelerating its automation programme to deal with the hiccups.
This was the word from SITA CEO Setumo Mohapi, speaking about the company's 'rebirth' at GovTech 2017.
According to Mohapi, SITA has undergone internal changes, which have seen the company alter how it performs some of its key functions. Old business models and expectation of interactions are changing and that presents a big area for growth.
SITA has been on a journey towards modernising its procurement processes. At last year's GovTech, the agency vowed to automate its entire procurement process, starting with issuing tenders online, evaluation, adjudication and awarding of tenders, as well as contracts management.
Government's ICT procurement arm has been candid about how its processes have historically been very administrative and manually-driven.
SITA is doing surgery to its procurement processes, and has been busy running campaigns, managing data and managing purchase requisitions, said Mohapi. "The intention is to turn around our procurement cycles from the minimum 90 days (if you are lucky) to 30 days maximum for decision-making."
The surgery has started, he stated.
Mohapi also noted that within the next week or so, the agency will formally launch the e-commerce platform for the government automation system.