29 June 2009
Johannesburg — THE search is on again for a CEO for the State IT Agency (Sita), with the body that supplies technology services to all state departments now running for almost a year without a leader.
Last week, Moses Mtimunye was appointed as its second successive acting CEO. It has lacked a permanent head since the abrupt resignation of Llewellyn Jones last July after nine months in the job.
Mtimunye says the lack of leadership is harming the organisation. "It's disruptive ... because we are not a small business -- we are a R4bn business without a CEO where key decisions are made on a day-by-day basis."
Acting CEOs always wonder if their decisions will be overturned once a new CEO arrives, creating doubt that hinders its operations .
Since the government is SA's heaviest spender on technology, Sita's competence and efficiency are vital to hundreds of hi-tech companies that rely on state contracts for their livelihood. Last year, Sita supplied technology services worth R3,8bn to the state, and procured additional equipment and services worth R2,5bn from third-party suppliers.
Jones's resignation was triggered by a clash over control, with too much government intervention and too little autonomy to run the agency efficiently and transparently.
Mtimunye says he does not expect "any monkey business" making it difficult for him to do the job. But he is still serving as Sita's strategic service executive, and says it is tough to fill both roles adequately.
The search for a permanent CEO was suspended earlier this year -- apparently after a candidate had been selected -- because of the political changes after the 2007 ANC conference at Polokwane, Mtimunye says.
Now the post is being
re-advertised, though a report into the health of the agency, commissioned by Public Services and Administration Minister Richard Baloyi , has not yet been published.
The probe covered its procurement practices, which have often been condemned as flawed or corrupt by losing bidders. It also looked at staffing issues, and relationships with state department clients and technology suppliers. "Its scope was broad (enough) to get to what's actually bedevilling the organisation," Mtimunye says.
Asked what was bedevilling Sita, he describes it as a complex body that few people understand. It does not adjudicate on tenders alone, as bids are mainly analysed by the department buying the equipment, yet Sita is generally blamed when a decision is late or a bidder is disgruntled.
"Nobody in Sita has been arrested or convicted of any corruption. There have been breaks in controls because people try to circumvent processes, not from an intent to break the law but to get things done more quickly.
"The jury is still out on whether there is incompetence. We have been training our people vigorously so they are on top of their game. But like any state- owned enterprise, we are a work in progress."
Addressing its quality and efficiency issues includes educating government officials in how to compile tenders and evaluation teams, and "how to behave themselves" so contracts are not clouded in controversy.
Morale among Sita's 3500 staff has been crushed, Mtimunye says. "The organisation has been battered so often that even our best people have lost their belief in themselves. We have highly skilled people who have been around for 20 or even 40 years. People who left for the private sector have left because they felt their contributions would be more appreciated there, and not in an organisation that is always in the news for the wrong reasons."
Skills in some newer technologies are hard to recruit, he says, and Sita is hamstrung by not always being able to match private sector salaries. Yet it is winning recruits from the private sector as its projects are highly demanding and appeal to people looking for variety and a challenge.
The agency is also developing a website where qualified suppliers can list commodity products such as computers, so when a department needs new equipment it does not have to issue a tender.
Another aim is to encourage state departments to make their technology needs known in advance, so Sita can compile bulk orders to secure discounts.
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