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
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
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