SITA steps up buying

Johannesburg, 27 Nov 2007

The State IT Agency (SITA) says it has been "incredibly busy" since the start of its financial year on 1 April.

In an exclusive interview with ITWeb, ex-acting CEO and newly instated chief of regulatory affairs and procurement Peter Pedlar says the organisation has made good progress on its tenders list.

"In the first six months of our year we have awarded tenders to the value of R2.5 billion. This does not include the 'Who Am I Online` project from the Department of Home Affairs; but does include the likes of the R454 million NGN [next-generation network] project and a R400 million Internet deal with Internet Solutions," he comments.

The value of the Who Am I Online project is speculated to be in the region of R2 billion.

Additionally, the agency has stepped up its own spend in line with the "heavy" infrastructure investments it said it would embark on this year.

Pedlar reveals: "We`ve spent just over R900 million on our own procurement in the first half of the year. This is almost as much as the R1 billion we spent during our last financial year. We`ve already made more investments in the second half of the year."

According to Pedlar, the internal infrastructure spend is required to boost capacity within SITA. This includes investment in network equipment, servers and other refresh initiatives.

Worker BEE

More than 73% of SITA`s internal expenditure has been with black economic empowerment (BEE) companies, says Pedlar.

"This is already R92 million, or 19%, higher than what SITA purchased from BEE vendors for the full 12 months of the previous financial year," he notes.

As for the percentage of tenders being awarded to BEE in this half of the year, Pedlar says this allocation is yet to be established.

In the year ended 31 March, SITA awarded more than R1.5 billion in tenders to its "approved vendor list". Eighty-six percent of these tenders were awarded to BEE vendors, it revealed in its annual report.

Approved, not preferred

The approved vendor list, previously called preferred vendors, has been the subject of much controversy in the IT industry.

In April last year, then chief of business operations Noedine Isaacs-Mpulo revealed the agency had entered into long-term partnership discussions with five private-sector IT companies.

Responding to industry outrage at the comments, then CEO Mavuso Msimang said no preferred partners had been identified to work with the organisation.

Now Pedlar says this situation is based on confusion and miscommunication.

"We shouldn`t call them preferred partners; they`re actually approved partners that have met our requirements to work on specialised areas such as security, network planning and the like. We do thorough investigations on these companies to ensure they have the skills and certifications to deliver on these types of projects," he explains.

But this does not mean that other companies are not able to get onto the list, Pedlar adds.

"These lists are regularly renewed and interested parties are more than welcome to apply to get on them. We don`t 'prefer` any one player, we just name those who have what is needed to deliver on specific areas," he explains.