SITA names private sector partners

By Dave Glazier for SITA
Johannesburg, 19 Apr 2006

The State IT Agency (SITA) has identified and entered into discussions with five private sector IT companies in order to foster long-term partnerships for upcoming projects.

This is according to recently appointed COO Noedine Isaacs-Mpulo, who says Business Connexion, Dimension Data, IBM, GijimaAst and SAP will be the core private sector partners.

She says the discussions are focused around discovering business opportunities and ways to build skills, adding that "SITA will go though a fair tender process" with any tender it issues.

"In the past, SITA's relationship with the private sector has been limited to just tender transactions," she says, explaining that corporate businesses have a wealth of expertise on which SITA should capitalise.

Investment opportunities

Isaacs-Mpulo adds that, aside from engaging with the private sector to improve service delivery, SITA will also invite large industry players to invest in some of its infrastructure projects.

"The [R10 billion] Integrated Financial Management System plan could be one such project," she hints. This refers to SITA's recent announcement that R10 billion will be spent in the next seven years on developing a strategy for managing the evolution of government's transversal IT systems, at provincial and national level.

SITA has allocated a capex of R264 million for operations in the 2006/7 financial year, which began on 1 April. This is up from last year's R200 million.

"The allocation will primarily be spent on general infrastructure upgrades, and upgrades to the government's common core network," she says.

Isaacs-Mpulo, who took office in the newly-created COO position last month as part of SITA's executive restructuring process, says this is the first time in three years SITA has had a COO.

"The creation of the post is all about focusing on the operations, and allowing the CEO [Mavuso Msimang] to focus more broadly on strategy," she adds.

Most recently in charge of corporate services, and previously a systems engineer at IBM, Isaacs-Mpulo identifies her main aims as improving service delivery to clients, and generating greater efficiency and productivity in all SITA operations.