IFMS may boost skills base

By Candice Jones for SITA
Johannesburg, 09 Oct 2007

Government is "on track" with its multibillion-rand integrated financial management system (IFMS), which aims to consolidate and renew its back-office applications. The IFMS project is estimated to be worth R4 billion, and is expected to be completed by 2012.

"Two tenders were issued for the IFMS, namely the integrated development environment (IDE) tender, which is for the open standards platform on which the system will operate; as well as the procurement module (PM) tender, which is intended to support government's reformed procurement processes," says SITA CEO Peter Pedlar.

He says the programme's contribution toward creating capacity and sustaining SA's technology skills base will be a key IFMS spin-off.

The agency says it cannot comment on the value of each tender, stating: "There are no pre-determined values of the tenders. Once the evaluation of the tenders is completed, we will have a fair idea of the costs involved and that will serve as input into our budgeting process."

Building skills

The IDE tender was published in January and awarded to IBM in mid-August. According to National Treasury chief director Moses Mongwe, IBM has been tasked to develop a workbench featuring a number of tools that should enable the development of software solutions.

Pedlar says this phase of the project will form the basis for skills development for the IFMS. "IBM will initially train a core set of skills for the asset register proof of concept, and train the trainer for further skills development by the prime systems integrator (PSI)."

The skills development concept is also linked to creating new ICT players that the PSI will train, certify and accredit for further deployment of IFMS systems in national and provincial departments, he adds.

SITA has not quantified the number of people to be trained in the programme. "At this stage, there are no floors or ceilings as to the envisaged number of new skills to be trained. The size of the project itself will require a large number of highly skilled people," says SITA spokesman Sifiso Ndlazi.

He says the basic skills required for the project will be in technology and functional architecture, systems analysis, developers, testers, trainers and technical support.

Work in progress

Submissions for the procurement module tender have now closed and are under evaluation.

According to Ndlazi, the agency has a shortlist of candidates. "We are not at liberty to disclose the names as the process is still ongoing. We should be able to make an announcement soon."

Bobby Maake, chief director of financial systems for National Treasury SA, says HR and procurement was put out to tender even though phase one was not yet finalised. "National Treasury engaged with the auditor-general on the matter to ensure the support of that office for pre-empting."

He says the major challenge for this phase of the project will be to land staff able to roll-out the applications as they are being developed. "We have sufficient people for data capture, but we need HR practitioners and accountants."

Another challenge is ensuring that financial systems continue to operate even as the roll-out and realignment take place, Maake says. A steering committee was appointed to manage the process, he adds.

Mongwe says SITA and National Treasury have already internally reviewed the first release of the IFMS. It also held an industry review at the beginning of August.

Release one of the systems is made up of the HR system, procurement system in the courts, item identification and an asset register infrastructure.

Another review is planned this month, when the overall IFMS architecture is completed, he says. Mongwe adds that the process is open to anyone in the ICT industry.