SITA shake-up amid govt meddling

By Martin Czernowalow for SITA
Johannesburg, 08 Aug 2008

The Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA) will this afternoon announce the new State IT Agency (SITA) board of directors, with former chairman Zodwa Manase taking the position for a second time.

Meanwhile, hard evidence has surfaced about interference from government officials in the awarding of SITA tenders.

The change of the SITA board chairmanship comes after the alleged refusal by current chairman Thenjiwe Chikane to renew her term, in protest against the Llewellyn Jones debacle.

Jones stepped down as CEO at the end of last month, amid allegations that government CIO and SITA deputy chairman Michelle Williams interfered with the agency's tender process.

Sources close to SITA say Chikane was "devastated" when public service and administration minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi accepted Jones's resignation during an extraordinary board meeting. It is understood that, as a result, she refused to renew her term, which ended at the beginning of this month.

Chikane could not be reached for comment.

E-mail trail

Solid evidence exists about how senior government officials have interfered with several SITA tenders and processes. Two separate sources have supplied ITWeb with copies of internal e-mail correspondence between SITA and government officials.

In these e-mails, dating between April and July this year, several tenders are under discussion, including the e-HR (electronic health record tender) and the process mapping tender (RFQ10-348-2008). The latter was the subject of a controversial SMS sent to Jones, by Williams, instructing that a different winner be chosen than the one elected by the Bid Evaluation Committee.

While GijimaAst was declared the winner after the evaluation process, Williams instructed that the R1.5 million contract be awarded to Praxis Computing.

In addition, some of the correspondence outlines how Williams rewrote the "SITA strategic plan", after hiring a prominent consulting agency to review the plan.

In terms of the process mapping tender, extensive correspondence exists between SITA and state officials, including Williams, government GM for strategic sourcing Grant Augustine, SITA chief of procurement Peter Pedlar, and SITA e-government chief architect Gracious Ncanywe, among others.

Formula questioned

Ncanywe, especially, takes issue with the formula used to adjudicate the tender, saying in an e-mail, dated 9 July and addressed to Augustine: "After spending a few nights trying to understand these complex matters, I have revisited the spreadsheet that resulted in Gijima 'winning' this tender."

He goes on to dispute the formula used and offers tables and calculations that put Praxis Computing on top of the short-list. This is but one message in a long string of heated correspondence regarding the tender evaluation process and winning bidders.

To date, neither SITA nor the DPSA have responded to ITWeb's queries about the prevalence of interference with the agency's due processes.

Meanwhile, the DPSA is expected to issue a list of new SITA board members this afternoon.