SITA adjusts tariffs

By Staff Writer for SITA

Johannesburg, 21 Oct 2004

The State IT Agency (SITA) has announced a 10% reduction in tariffs it charges for ICT services it renders to government departments.

In terms of the adjustments, which went into effect in April and have been sanctioned by the National Treasury and the Department of Public Service and Administration, tariffs that SITA charges for the Basic Accounting System (BAS) have been capped at a fixed monthly rate.

The agency says that to reduce IT services costs to government departments, tariffs charged for IBM hosting services have been cut by 10%, while tariffs for all other hosting services will be increased by 6%, including library services and Financial Management System.

SITA CFO Pieter Els recently commented that the agency's reduced tariffs had contributed to its reporting lower profits for the year, as compared to the previous corresponding period.

Meanwhile, labour rates and tariffs have increased by 6%, while the impact on networks will only be where SITA services are contracted on a time and materials basis. The tariffs that SITA charges for Internet services have also been fixed according to the bandwidth utilised by the departments.

When fully deployed, the Government Common Core Network, which replaced Openet in 2002, will allow government to cut costs, and is recommended as the future of government interconnectivity.

SITA has not increased its tariffs for transversal systems for the 2003/4 year, but increased usage and additional functionality on the BAS system have resulted in increases in total costs for most departments.