The troubled State Information Technology Agency (SITA) is once again under a parliamentary microscope.
Yesterday, the Portfolio Committee on Justice and Constitutional Development became the latest parliamentary committee to urge SITA to get its house in order and stabilise the organisation, as its inefficiencies impacted the work of government.
Committee chairperson Xola Nqola said yesterday’s meeting came hot on the heels of the committee’s oversight visit last week to entities in the justice portfolio in KwaZulu-Natal, “where SITA was singled out as a major impediment to courts operating effectively due to connectivity and infrastructure issues”.
SITA told the justice committee it is having staff capacity issues, which makes it difficult for the agency to fulfil its mandate.
In February, the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies (DCDT) briefed the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Communications and Digital Technologies about the ongoing governance issues and allegations of maladministration at SITA.
This was in addition to the ongoing investigations into SITA governance matters, such as those being conducted by the Public Service Commission and Public Protector, with the latter looking into the process to appoint the previous acting MD and chief procurement officer.
An entity of the DCDT, SITA sits as a central pillar of government's IT procurement. It is also responsible for developing, operating and/or maintaining ICT services consumed by government departments.
The entity was recently in the communications minister’s crosshairs, when its outgoing board “unilaterally” appointed an acting MD without ministerial approval.
An acting MD has since been appointed, effective 5 February. However, it remains without an executive board, as their term expired on 31 January.
Accountability issues
“It comes across as if there are delays in what the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development (DOJ&CD) has been planning to do due to SITA. As far back as last year, we took an official committee decision to call SITA and the department to iron out the challenges,” said Nqola.
Yesterday, the committee was briefed on the implementation of the Integrated Justice System (IJS) by the DOJ&CD, which is the lead department on the matter.
The Office of the Auditor-General (AGSA), Department of Social Development, National Treasury, Legal Aid South Africa, National Prosecuting Authority and Office of the Chief Justice (OCJ) provided input.
The committee said it took a dim view that the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) indicated it would not participate in the meeting and the fact that the South African Police Service did not respond to the meeting invitation.
“All these systems should speak to each other. Home affairs is the starting point. You need to be registered at birth and later receive an identity document for identification. Yet they are not here to make valuable contributions,” Nqola said.
The committee heard that the primary objective of the IJS programme is to electronically enable and integrate the end-to-end criminal justice business processes, from reporting a crime, to releasing a convicted person through technology solutions.
Furthermore, it aims to manage the related inter-departmental information exchanges across the criminal justice system.
The IJS is also used to fight fraud in the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) and verify the identity of social grant beneficiaries using the home affairs database. The IJS enables the integration of SASSA into DHA, making a near-real-time person verification service available.
The committee heard that SITA does not have the capacity to deliver on IJS projects. It said SITA resources are used to work on multiple projects simultaneously and end up being inundated with work. SITA’s supply chain processes are also cumbersome, the committee heard.
The DOJ&CD said a further concern is an ageing and/or obsolete infrastructure, which remains a challenge across the criminal justice system and may lead to being vulnerable to cyber attacks.
SITA acknowledged it has capacity issues due to a high staff vacancy rate. “The organisation is unstable due to a challenge with a previous board that was dissolved and who took the matter to court,” said the committee.
“An interim board was appointed, and the court reinstated the old board. The end product was the interim board mixed with the old one.”
Time is of the essence
The IJS programme is a government initiative that strives to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the South African criminal justice process.
It is driving a multi-department effort to increase the probability of successful investigation, prosecution, punishment and rehabilitation of offenders and their release back into society to realise a national objective that all South Africans are safe and feel safe.
The AGSA highlighted the fact that SITA was slow in addressing the AG’s recommendations and had received a disclaimer audit opinion.
Nqola said the meeting was constructive as the committee believed in a joint solution to joint problems.
“The committee and the AG now bear the responsibility of strengthening accountability to see through the problems engulfing the entire system.”
He urged the acting chairperson of the SITA board to stabilise the organisation so that it could make progress.
Nqola said SITA has short- and long-term goals: “Getting the OCJ and high courts online is a short-term goal; it’s low-hanging fruits that you can quickly pick.”
He urged SITA to work with the DOJ&CD to ensure connectivity in the courts, or the case backlog will pile up.
“We need to reach the objectives of the IJS, which state that it must be efficient and effective. We will have regular meetings to track the progress on IJS,” said Nqola.
SITA had not responded to ITWeb’s questions by the time of publication.
Share