Discombobulated

Discombobulated inside out

I find this week’s column almost impossible to write.

My brief is to write about anything I like as long as what I write is related to the IT environment.

Well truthfully the IT environment at the moment is about as interesting or sexy as a babe in a nightie wearing smelly vellies.

The local elections are here, Julias Malema is arguing in court he actually loves me, Winnie just called the court illiterate and with that pronouncement one assumes the Judge presiding as well.

A man is beaten and shot at point blank range by rubber or hard nose ammunition, it matters not a jot which, he is dead, by a pack of ill disciplined cowards masquerading as police in the full glare of the media.

The policemen are condemned by Government and at the same time, so are the media who reported the act. In fact the media are to be or have been reported for offending sensitive viewers.

George Louca, accused of murdering Lolly Jackson has surfaced and been giving interviews, Tony Ehrenrich is nominated as Cape Town candidate for Mayor by the ANC and threatens to bring charges of corruption against the DA led council for building bicycle lanes in affluent suburbs.

Manyi has me more discombobulated than my neutered worsie.

He is recently reported as being unapologetic regarding his racist stance regarding the coloureds in the Western Cape, while an apology for his racist stance was preferred ostensibly on his behalf by the Government spokesman.

The ANCYL led by the leadership (read Julius) were on their way to campaign for the local government elections outside Gatcha’s house?

Mbalula is calling Asmal’s current contribution to popular discourse “rumblings of a raving lunatic”. 

Asmal also refers to “some” in the current ANC leadership as having “slithered from under stones” and Manuel likens others as being in the league of Adolf Hitler. (iWeekWednesday, 13 April 2011)

I ask you with tears in my eyes.

This is juicy stuff.

I must ignore probably the most skinner filled period in our political history and “keep it IT”.

Ok, here goes nothing, I’ll try.

Winnie said outside the court today at the Julias Malema hearing Malema was there not just as youth league leader, but as the ANC's representative.

Malema thanked the crowd and said he could not speak about what was said in court as it was "used inside". 

He urged the crowd to remain disciplined "so we don't give enemies anything to talk about".

Let me get this straight, what’s being said by Malema “inside” is that what he’s saying “outside” isn’t what he says “inside”.

Malema can’t speak outside about what’s said inside because what he says outside gets used inside.

However what Malema is saying inside about what he’s saying outside (kill the boer) "so we don't give enemies anything to talk about” does not translate.

Patently the people inside are the enemy inside out.

Confused? Never mind spare a thought for me.

The only thing I know is how little I do know. I learned to read from a newspaper while sitting on my grandpa's lap. I was given my first children's book, a second hand one at that, by my sister on my seventh birthday. I have a natural predilection for fact over fiction.

I am essentially an objectivist as a consequence of my youthful deprivation more by default than design. Objectivism (disambiguation) holds that reality exists quite independent of consciousness and that perception can lead you to attaining objective knowledge.

Perception can lead you to attaining objective knowledge through the process of concept formation and inductive and deductive logic.

The process of concept formation and inductive and deductive logic of objectivism leads to the conclusion that the moral purpose of the individual is the pursuit of individual happiness or self interest.

The only social system consistent with this morality is the system that upholds complete respect for individual rights.

Consequently as a victim of my circumstance and accidental disciple of logic there is in the reference by Winnie to the illiteracy of the Judiciary - which she will deny she meant, and Malema’s reference to the enemy, which logic dictates is the people he refers to in his song - a deep rooted contempt and total disrespect for individual rights.

It is not what is being said inside the court that will dictate the outcome of the hate speech trial and not what some supporters of (kill the boer) mean when they sing the song, but what Malema means when he speaks outside about singing it.

Malema is constantly quoted as saying he only bears reference to the armed struggle, not a call to violence.

It is the Transvaal Agricultural Union of SA “inside” the court Mr. Malema you don’t want to give “outside” something to talk about “inside”, the Boer, the enemy in the "so we don't give enemies anything to talk about”

I for one am left with absolutely no illusion regarding what Malema means or what he wants.

I just wish he’d stop flip flopping and come right out with it.

As for the protester murdered in cold blood by a gang of thugs in full view of the media, not allegedly, definitely, I am astounded by the speed with which the matter has been investigated on the eve of a Municipal election.

Colonel Sam Makhele, the spokesperson for the Free State police commissioner, said that deaths in police hands were rare. "It's unfortunate that someone lost his life, but it is an isolated incident," he said. "We've never experienced such a thing in the province."

But according to the ICD's annual report, in the Free State seven suspects died while they were being arrested and 47 died as a result of police action or in police custody.

The Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD), according to its 2010 annual report, investigated 1 769 cases of people dying in police custody or as a result of police action.

Farmers are being murdered in their hundreds, thousands in fact have been murdered or shall we say they haven’t?

The police statistics in the 2010 annual report show deaths from police action or custody have doubled over the previous year. 1769 civilians died at the hands of police or in their custody.

Manyi wants coloureds to spread themselves thin, to migrate, to make way for blacks, to promote representivity I don’t think so, its about absolute power.

Oh man it doesn’t take me, the courts, the alliance partners or the media to tell the ruling party it’s making an absolute knob of itself.

Or that the second coming of Christ may be here sooner than some think if they don’t get their act together.

Now back to the IT slant to my column, I’ve run out of space, my editor has run out of deadline and all I can offer is that I wrote my column on a Toshiba Qosmio I bought from a chap emigrating for a song.

It’s quite wonderful really but for all its glitz and glamour it needs a R150 cooling pad or will fry your nuts if you use it as a “lap”top.

Kill the boer

Watching the Julias Malema hate speech trial I was drawn back to a film I watched a while back called Stop Loss.

Probably filmed by some psuedo lefty tree hugging beatnik as their contribution to protesting the IRAQ war.

A film that ends with the concientious objector finally realising the futility of objecting?

I caught myself muttering "Blow me bitch" and reciting a mantra I wrote some time "seems like an eternity" ago that goes something like this.

In the name of solidarity justice and peace
laws are imposed by Politicians
and jeers hurled from crowds to force the unwilling to become more willing.

On the eve of one victory and anothers defeat
The Politicians shout
NO MORE.
While some people celebrate while others weep

How soon you forget the young old men walking in shock
Down your impersonal streets.

In South Africa wages a war bitter sweet
Fanned by the winds of political deciet.

Away are young men sent to fight their brethren in vain
While Politicians offer up their prayers for their pain.

I pack away my parachute and lay down my gun.
Never again to jump from the sun.
My duty to God AND country is done.

Where is my childhood
Where is my youth
Be still young man
Your eyes hide the truth.

- FINI

Well it went something like that. I never kept the diatribe filed anywhere I just committed it to memory but it seldom changes much in the reciting when I regurgitate it.

I wrote it at a time when I decided there'd been enough bloodshed.

Now I'm neither bitter nor sad.

Matter of fact.

I'm just a tad pissed off.

I'm pissed off that my fourteen year old wants to know if I've killed anyone.

As if this will add some lustre to my life or make me out to be a bigger man.

Maybe he needs to think, continue anyway that I'm larger than life.

Is it possible that I can even after all these years be defined by my actions as a young impressionable man that at the time quite literally didn't know shit from shinola?

The fact is while I never saw a bullet of mine kill a man, I served with the best my country had to offer and saw active duty and combat on more than one occassion.

Nobody crossed my gunsights in the fury of battle I could take down before someone else did.

But I participated and witnessed first hand the violence and the immediate aftermath of a terrible war.

Here's the rub.

I know what dead people look like.

I've seen enough for 100 lifetimes.

I don't have bad dreams or nightmares much anymore although I do ever so often grind my teeth so loud I wake myself up.

I am not a purist or a pacifist.

But my God when I look at my son I know, I just know I am a humanist.

I am not afraid of war.

I am afraid of dying though.

I need to live to guide my loved ones, to be there for them.

That is the part about dying that frightens me the most.

Not being able to whisper tolerance, patience, and the other mantra that means so much more than just a cliche' from a plaque on a wall "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the strenght to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference."

Today as I look to our country I am left with a cold feeling in my heart and a sense of deep foreboding.

It is something I simply cannot shake.

Perhaps after all I am a negative human and not a patriot.

Perhaps I am ungrateful or a racist because I see so much more injustice than what I'd hoped for when I lay down my arms?

But the taunts are back and so are the the supplications "in the name of solidarity, justice and peace".

Bring me my machine gun by in all likelihood my new President is what I have to look forward to.

While this may be fobbed off as simply a rallying cry from a bitter past it is the very nature of the words that keep me awake thinking. 

As we slide inexorably toward our next election, people will die.

People are dying.

The machine gun bit is not rhetoric from a distant bitter past.

It is a mantra that is taken quite literally by many and is being carried by many in their hearts.

The exact same applies to the words in a song that suggest "shoot the boer" in a modern South African context.

Do I expect Uhuru in South Africa?

No.

But I see more bloodshed and more disregard for the rule of law.

I see injustice and intollerance creeping like a cancer through an otherwise impotent country.

The words we will kill for this and we will kill for that is a constant reminder that there are men in this world that will not let me live in peace.

I find myself looking at my son wondering how he would shape up in a firefight and feel the horror well in my throat.

I look at myself and know I am still quite capable.

I wonder why I am thinking like that?

I wonder why or even if I should?

I don't like being threatened and I don't like being pushed around.

I wonder if the people stepping up their rhetoric leading up to a supposedly "democratic" election realise what they are saying, what the ramifications, the implications, the realities of what they espouse and seek are?

I wonder if they can vaguely understand hate, deep rooted hate, the kind of hate that stems from vengeance, the kind of vengeance that comes from having your loved ones attacked and killed simply because they or you had an opposing ideology or world view?

It is something that simmers and seethes and consumes and will, oh it certainly will rupture like a festering sore.

So while I have packed away a parachute and laid down a gun and vowed never again to jump from the sun it seems my duty to country, not God is done.

I am not a priest, I am not even particularly pious or religious.

I am not particularly political.

"I am a man. I consider nothing humane indifferent to me" – Socrates

I do believe in my given duty to be a protector.

To those people out there who are shouting their taunts and rattling their sabres I say quite simply.

I ain't a puppy.

Blow me bitch!

I object!!!!

I am a conscientious objector, who might, just might kill you right back and teach my kids how to kill yours too!

Be careful what you wish for.

I too sang songs, songs I remember vividly.

Songs that will offend and disgust, songs that left the listener under no illusion what was meant.

Songs I will never sing again, because they are hurtful and an incitement to hate and distrust.

The emancipation of one does not equate into the prejudice of another.

Freedom for all means peace, tolerance and a respect for the dignity of all.

To justify singing "kill" anyone for whatever reason in South Africa, is simply a means to gloat for some and in so doing a means to inflict wounds on the soul of others.

That is not conducive to creating a prosperous future.

That is the recipe for a future built on spite and resentment.

You can call it anyway you want.

I call it the basis for instilling hate.

Hate speech if you must

The `China-fication` of Africa

AS CHINA RACES to feed its inflamed economy and plunders large tracts of Africa's natural resources, that country's foreign policy and divergent ideology relegates Africa to a fate worse than during the previous colonial era in the full pervasive glare of the entire international community.

Cash flush and starved for resources, China's foray into Africa is based almost exclusively on building infrastructure that serves the singular purpose of processing and moving natural resources that will ultimately and virtually exclusively ensure these scarce and un-replenishable resources reach and feed their economy.

Behind China's advances into the continent lies a cold and ruthless pursuit that will leave in its wake a wasteland brought on by an unsustainable assault on the Continent and its mineral riches.

However, an obvious fact is that there is virtually no measurable investment whatsoever in Africa's information, communication and technology space?

It is both startling and stark that the omens are there, but are largely being ignored.

The global landscape is changing dramatically, and with it there are demographic trends that are already largely determined, which will contribute to a substantial reshaping of the global landscape, a reshaping that in less than half a decade will see Africa irreversibly and permanently relegated to a state of abject poverty, with only small pockets of prosperity.

China holds over a trillion dollars in hard currency reserves, growing by leaps and bounds and already a recognised nuclear power, and is developing a blue-water navy. The National Intelligence Council, a US government think tank, projects that by 2025, China will have the world's second largest economy. Such growth is opening the way for a multi-polar era in world politics.

This tectonic shift will pose a challenge to the US-dominated global institutions that have been in place since the 1940s.

In a modern world, already deep into globalisation, ICT is an enabler. Investing in a country, or plundering one, while similarly enabling a population to disseminate and communicate in an open and transparent manner about such activities simply doesn't go hand-in-hand.

Recently, it's been published that China has stepped forward to provide Telkom with the credit needed to fund its fledgling cellular arm, 8ta. But this does not equate to investing in ICT. This is providing finance on a commercial basis, which serves only to further enslave either a company or country in debt. China is, in fact, funding ICT projects in Africa at a massive premium and in a manner that is highly uncompetitive.

Geopolitical landscape

China's productivity and global standing are deeply uncertain, in part because of the large resources required to deal with its demographic problems.

In the near-term, China is struggling fiscally to keep up the social infrastructure necessary to support its large, growing, increasingly urban population. It is also constrained by the enormous costs required to restructure its state enterprises and failing banking sectors.

According to the IMF, China's overall fiscal deficit in 2000 was estimated to be about 4% of GDP, up from 1.6% in 1996.

China's overall budget deficit hit 660 billion yuan ($129 billion) in 2010, according to Reuters calculations last month, after the China Ministry of Finance published its December fiscal revenue and expenditure data.

In only 30 years, China will have to expend tremendous resources to deal with its own aging crisis and most likely will not have the same coping mechanisms - sophisticated tax structures, deep capital markets and developed pension and healthcare systems - that developed countries have for dealing with an aging population.

By 2025, China will have more than 200 million people aged 65 and over and, by 2050, more than 300 million - more than the current size of the US population. As a result, China could confront slower growth, increased political instability, and perhaps even pressure for significant cultural changes.

China has responded to the challenge of the large-scale resources required to deal with its demographic problems by turning to Africa.

After trade grew at an average rate of 33.5% annually, between 2000 and 2008, China became Africa's largest trade partner last year, even though exchanges declined due to the global financial crisis.

Chinese capital has poured into the continent, despite criticism in the West of Beijing's support for the hard-line regimes of leaders such as Sudan's Omar al-Bashir and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.

Beijing had pumped a total of $9.3 billion in direct investment into Africa by the end of 2009, covering several sectors, including mining, agriculture, forestry and construction, it claims. From 2000 to 2009, China cancelled more than 300 debts of 35 African countries, worth $2.9 billion.

Trade between China and Africa surged 43.5% year-on-year in the first 11 months of 2010. The value of two-way trade reached $114.8 billion from January to November, the state council said in a report on Sino-African economic and trade co-operation.

China is investing heavily in African oil exploration to help meet its rapidly-growing consumption. In 2003, it overtook Japan to become the world's second-biggest consumer of petroleum products after the US.

The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) adds that China accounted for 40% of the total growth in global oil demand over the past four years.

Clearly, the West remains rooted in the Middle East to satisfy its demands for energy. Under ordinary circumstances, this power shift should be welcomed if it translates favourably for Africa, which on the face of it, seems to, with the massive increase in trade between the two trading blocks, China and Africa. But it doesn't.

As of 2008, nearly 1 600 Chinese companies landed their business operations in Africa, while China has undertaken more than 900 projects in African countries.

Zambia

Zambia has embarked on massive projects in the copper belt to boost copper production prior to and during the global economic meltdown, which has seen copper prices, as well as other commodities, tank.

There are at least three new smelters simultaneously being built by the Chinese, employing hundreds of Chinese workers. The entire project relies on finished products, labour, tools and equipment being supplied by China.

The issue of Zambia's power scarcity is currently being addressed by the Chinese in the form of massive projects to increase generating capacity. One such project is Zambia's Kariba North Bank hydro power station, which is currently being upgraded. The scheme kicked off in 2008, with $325 million provided by Exim Bank, owned by the Chinese government. The outstanding amount of $105 million has recently been sourced through a loan from the Development Bank of Southern Africa. The funding from China is based on an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) agreement.

China's Sino Hydro Corporation is the sole project contractor, and the EPC contract means it has taken full responsibility for construction - including the supply of material and labour. The project is due to be completed by December 2012, and the plant expected to be operational by early 2013.

There are advanced plans for the construction of a $1.5 billion new project, the 600MW Kafue Gorge Lower hydro station. Work will begin there by mid-2011. Sino Hydro will also work with Zesco on this project.

China has built the smelters to produce copper, smelters that cannot be brought online, but will be kept in mothballs until such time as China builds capacity to generate sufficient power to bring the smelters online.

There will almost certainly be a buy-back agreement between the Chinese and the Zambians that guarantees the Chinese get power for their smelters at a very attractive rate from increased generation.

Simply put, Zambia will supply China with copper ore for power; while China will benefit from cheap energy and copper ore value add through the full cycle of production.

Nigeria

Compared to China's enormous Internet market of 420 million users (50% of the Asian continent), Africa has a combined market of 110 million users, or 10% of the total African population.

Africa already has a poor record of press freedom and the widespread arrest and detention of journalists. This record is likely to be duplicated in cyber-space. African governments, like China, caught between a rock and a hard place as liberalisation of telecommunications open up the Internet market to more users, are reluctant to relinquish state control of information.

Consequently, there is investment by African countries into ICT, but many are seeking to control the flow of information, in much the same way as traditional media channels have been controlled.

Regimes are likely to make greater use of Internet censorship techniques and crack down on those who use the Internet to express contrary views.

With an official intolerance for opposing views, which has led the Chinese to develop sophisticated Web-monitoring and censoring systems, China seems a logical partner to develop an ICT infrastructure in Africa.

In 2005, China Great Wall Industry Corporation, a state-owned hardware manufacturer, won a $311 million contract from the Nigerian government to manufacture and launch the NigComSat-1 communications satellite. Under the management of the Nigerian National Space Research Development Agency, NigComSat-1 will harvest contracts from Nigeria-based telecom operators, who will no longer need to solicit service through foreign satellite operators. The satellite was launched in May 2007.

China is currently supporting the Nigerian government's purchase with a $200 million credit facility from Exim Bank.

Huawei Technologies, one of China's leading networking and telecommunications equipment suppliers, won a $100 million contract in 2006 to become the leading CDMA network provider for Nigeria's Multi-Links, a loss-making company part-owned by Telkom. The same year, Huawei announced that Starcomms Nigeria, Nigeria's largest telecom operator, would deploy Nigeria's first 1xEV-DO-based mobile broadband network.

Huawei has opened a new "Technology Support Centre" for Western Africa, in Abuja. Huawei also announced a $200 million memorandum of understanding for the Phase II rural telephone network.

Nigeria is bedevilled by worse power outages than Zambia by a significant stretch, and despite being ranked the world's seventh-largest gas producer, is contending with an energy crisis.

The poor electricity supply in Nigeria has proved a major impediment to the operation and growth of ICT in the nation's universities. Only a trickle of daily electricity production dribbles erratically into the country's 93 institutions, rendering ICT systems dysfunctional.

Ironically, Nigeria has spent $311 million on sending a telecoms satellite into space funded by the Chinese when, in fact, the most critical necessity for a stable ICT network, an uninterrupted power supply, is virtually non-existent. Instead, in Nigeria, a satellite has replaced the smelter.

By funding the satellite, China, through the China Great Wall Industry Corporation, Huawei Technologies and Exim Bank of China, stand to control large tracts of Nigeria's ICT sector, at a time when the country is in the throes of a debilitating power generation and distribution crisis.

Naturally, this locks out competition when the power grid of Nigeria is enhanced, and is paid for in Nigerian oil in any event.

A consortium of Chinese firms, including SEPCOIII Electric Power Construction Corporation and China National Machinery and Equipment Import and Export Corporation, is set to take over the 335MW-capacity Omotosho Thermal Station, in Ondo State.

The Nigeria Federal Government decided to sell the power station to the contractors that handled its construction, due to the inability of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria to operate the plant, according to press reports in January. The government built the power plant through a credit line from Exim Bank of China.

Three power plants benefited from the credit line, including Papalanto, a 335MW-capacity plant in Ogun state, which was developed by Chinese group SEPCO; Omotosho, developed by China National Machinery and Equipment Import & Export Corporation; and Geregu Power Station, a 138MW-capacity plant, in Kogi State, developed by Siemens.

In essence, the Nigerian government took out loans from China to build and refurbish power plants and promptly sold the same plants back to the Chinese for as yet undisclosed sums.

Nigerians will now pay for their electricity in oil - electricity they paid for in oil but now no longer own.

The list in Africa, including South Africa, of China's imperialism and colonisation is stark as it is endless. It is not that China is investing in Africa, but how it is going about it.

It would indeed do well for Africa to remember that the Chinese are masters in the art of war, and Africa's citizens must begin to strategically defend, not only their sustainability, but also their sovereignty, or pay the price.

iWeekWednesday, 09 February 2011 00:00Written by Bart Henderson

This little piggy

The state of ICT in our country makes me want to stay home

TECHNOLOGY CONTRACTS awarded by the Gauteng Department of Roads and Transport (GDRT), amounting to over R40 million, will be investigated by the auditor-general of SA (AGSA) it's been reported.

Home Affairs unceremoniously dumps the multibillion-rand "Who Am I Online" contract. This was one of two IT contracts cancelled in the space of seven months and highlighted the challenges faced in curtailing corruption and securing SA's identity and other documents.

Staying with Home Affairs, Coltrane Nyathi, a senior Lefatshe Technology executive, and home affairs chief director of infrastructure management Hilitha Nkosana appeared in the Pretoria High Court on charges of bribery and corruption.

Home affairs and the police said in a joint statement the men were arrested following a sting operation by the Hawks and the home affairs anti-corruption unit after an alleged attempt by Nyathi to hand R200 000 to Nkosana to influence him to act in a manner that benefited Lefatshe.

It's been reported that identity theft has contributed significantly to Neotel's financial difficulties. Using stolen identity documents, criminals opened accounts with the operator and incurred bills amounting to thousands of rands, which went unpaid.

Neotel claims since the inception of its consumer business unit it has had between 3% and 5% of revenue fraud being perpetrated, which is in line with industry fraud statistics.

Revenue statistics for this sector puts total income at R84 billion (2007). This means fraud accounts for R4.2 billion at 2007 figures per annum.

Of course, then there is also the Companies and Intellectual Property Registration Office (Cipro) and the hijacking of companies, which has - in turn - led to SARS suffering millions in losses.

Cipro has cancelled its electronic content management contract and is embroiled in litigation with the company that was supposed to provide the technology solutions that would protect the economy from widespread abuse of the organisation's IT systems.

Of course, the State Information Technology Agency has been in a state of turmoil for years. Three of the organisation's executive team were suspended as investigations into tender irregularities and colluding with suppliers were launched.

Ramabele Magoma Nthite, shared services executive; Moses Mthimunye, strategic services chief; and Ranti Mahlabana, general manager for human resource services, were removed from their positions pending the outcome of the investigation.

Reports in 2010 indicate more than 900 South African Police Service (SAPS) officials were found guilty of benefits-fraud, after being caught in the act by the Special Investigations Unit, by September.

Reports also suggested that a total of 95 000 of the one million civil servants in South Africa last year faced internal hearings for defrauding the state of billions of rands' worth of benefits on provincial and national level.

The Department of Labour (DOL) will not renew its contract with Siemens to deliver its IT systems. The public-private partnership (PPP) began in 2002 and, apart from escalating costs, was plagued by other irregularities and challenges.

I could, of course, go on.

The fact is just these few examples indicate that poor ICT solutions and the graft that stems from the awarding of tenders (R24 billion under current investigation) is costing our economy consequentially tens of billions.

The great question is how can we possibly account for the waste?

How can we possibly embrace the possibility that there are more criminals roaming the streets than there are criminals incarcerated and that if we were to charge and prosecute every single case under investigation, our prison population would probably treble?

Do we even know the full scope and cost of the problem of defunct IT solutions, bought and paid for that are now lying in a great trash can in the cyber sky somewhere?

In any rational society there would be a massive response to such waste. The damage from the knock-on effect for companies and citizens affected directly and indirectly is too ghastly to contemplate.

Everything is affected, from the cost of services to products, health care, education, food, transport, you name it.

The Road Accident Fund is bankrupt, the SABC is in a shambles, and SAPS is beset by challenges to its management. The state of our nation's administration and protection of information can only be described as "failed".

This is because we are unable to deploy software and solutions that protect the character and integrity of our information and data bases.

How is it possible that an entire country can find its government ICT sector in such a state of anarchy? Who is in charge?

Is there even an acknowledgement that the level of corruption and lack of delivery in government ICT could threaten our national security and, in fact, currently is?

The fact is every rand lost to fraud and corruption must be recouped somehow. Government can't continue to fork out billions for solutions that just don't work and cause Government untold difficulties when it comes to service delivery.

The fact is I don't envy government.

Whatever the causes, cadre deployment, entitlement, greed, it is government that still needs to deliver and in the face of the level of onslaught to the financial integrity of its business transactions, it must be the source of some pain to realise that we have embarked on an unsustainable path of eventual destruction.

My sense is there is a status quo in the industry, the billion-rand projects all seem dead in the water with few, if any, new contracts awarded for quite some time.

The rape of the fiscus is at levels I am warning you today that will lead to the collapse of our financial system. At the epicentre of this lie ICT and the failure of the sector to bring value to society in the form of data that can be managed and information that can be referenced and protected and analysed.

The e-tolling system, a state-of-the-art tech-driven solution will soon go live in Gauteng. It's amazing how well ICT can be used when its purpose is to collect money.

Someone, somewhere will get very, very rich and millions of consumers, the vast majority who need to use the roads, will take hundreds of more rands per month out their pockets to fund the feed for the trough, for the luxury of using the roads that fell into disrepair, primarily because of the neglect that arose from corruption in the first place.

The state of ICT in our country makes this little piggy want to stay home.

iWeek
Wednesday, 23 February 2011 00:00Written by Bart Henderson
Bart Henderson is a leading forensic auditor and CEO of Henderson Solutions, an enterprise risk management firm