The system is down – Home Affairs wants to ditch its biggest handicap
Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber has criticised inefficiencies at the State Information Technology Agency (SITA), blaming the agency for hindering progress across government and dragging on its ambitions to become a modern, digital department.
Delivering an address to the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) this week, Schreiber said that SITA is a “critical obstacle on our journey towards digital transformation.”
“SITA is an artificial construct that stands squarely in the way of technological progress, not only at Home Affairs, but across government,” said Schreiber.
According to its website, SITA was established in 1999 “to consolidate and coordinate the State’s information technology resources in order to achieve cost savings through scale, increase delivery capabilities and enhance interoperability. “
As per the SITA Act, the agency’s mandate is to improve service delivery to South African residents and citizens by providing information technology, information systems, and related services.
It also stipulates that this must be done in a maintained system information security environment for government departments and public bodies.
Schreiber said that Home Affairs had identified its primary goal as digitally transforming this department, as encapsulated in its vision statement to deliver Home Affairs @ home, but SITA was standing in the way.
Broadly, the DHA envisions an ambitious new future, where no one has to visit a Home Affairs office in person again to access routine services like ID and passport applications and delivery.
The vision directs that over the next five years, all of the department’s services must become fully automated, digitised, and offered online so that clients can access them from the comfort of their own homes.
“Make no mistake about it: the successful implementation of this vision has the potential to revolutionise government as we know it in South Africa,” said the minister.
However, Schreiber believes that SITA is standing in its way.
“SITA currently exercises a monopoly over key aspects of IT services in the public sector [but] the model of imposing a state monopoly over digital technologies is simply not fit-for-purpose in the digital age,” said Schreiber.
He added that, in practice, the SITA monopoly means that “Home Affairs is operating with one hand tied behind our backs.”
The minister argued that it is “simply not right” for Home Affairs to be held accountable for IT failures while not being empowered to address them fully.
“Even as we move with urgency to reform technological aspects under our control, our efforts will fall short for as long as we cannot maintain, procure and properly manage our own IT infrastructure,” said Schreiber.
He added that the department cannot meet its goals of digital transformation within the context of an ‘outdated IT monopoly.’
“It is therefore critical that government as a whole, and the Department of Communication and Digital Technologies in particular, takes urgent steps to reform the regulatory environment for Information Technology,” said Schreiber.
The Home Affairs minister stated that while a government agency is needed for interoperability, he called SITA’s monopoly “a proven failure” causing system outages, data risks, and website failures.
Past plans to ditch SITA
This is not the first time the Home Affairs and SITA have butted heads.
In June 2021, former Home Affairs minister Aaron Motsoaledi told the NCOP that Home Affairs wanted permission from National Treasury to ditch SITA and use a private IT provider.
Motsoaledi said that the IT services provided by SITA were the “original sin” of Home Affairs, and argued that although other government departments may be somewhat affected by problems at SITA, it has a crippling impact on his department.
“We have done away with manual systems and introduced a live capture system about eight [now ten] years ago,” the Minister stated.
He explained that Home Affairs depends on its IT system provider because the department’s staff is not made up of IT experts.
Motsoaledi’s statements in Parliament drew sharp criticism from then-SITA executive caretaker Luvuyo Keyise.
Keyise said Home Affairs’ problems are not SITA’s fault, but due to the department’s own ineptitude and unwillingness to pay for the quality of service it actually needs.
“They buy a bronze service, which offers a 16 business hours turnaround time on issues,” explained Keyise.
SITA advised that the DHA consider upgrading to a platinum-tier service, providing all the necessary redundancy and a far stricter service level agreement.
Following Keyise’s criticism, plans for Home Affairs to ditch SITA seemed to halt.
- BusinessTech reached out to SITA for comment but did not get a response by the time of publication. A response will be added once received.
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