State Information Technology Agency services to Home Affairs, with Deputy Minister

Meeting report

Briefing by Department of Home Affairs
Mr Mkuseli Apleni, Director General, said that the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) was facing connectivity issues. He spoke to SITA's legislative mandate and its services to the DHA, including the Service Level Agreement (SLA). He spoke to the modernisation programme the DHA was undergoing. Services were being automated and done online and if the service was offline the DHA could not process anything as it was moving away from a paper based system. Live capture had been rolled out to 178 out of 400 offices and these were automated. There were also 12 bank sites. By the beginning of the next financial year all sites would be automated. The ports of entry also needed biometric systems and this was currently hosted by SARS. He then spoke to the current network architecture.

Challenges experienced by the DHA were the frequent downtime of SITA switching centres; the lack of redundancies in the current network architecture; the environmental conditions at the data centres and switching centres; SITA's lack of expertise to manage the hosted National Population Register (NPR) system; and the lack of a single point of accountability and responsibility for the end to end network service.

Mr Apleni spoke to disruptions experienced in August 2016 and the impact of network disruptions on the DHA especially the denial of service to clients. He spoke to the interventions that were taking place, including monthly SLA meetings with SITA, and ministerial, letters to the Minister of Telecommunications and Postal Services (DTPS) and meetings between all stakeholders as convened by the Ministers of the DHA and DTPS, the SITA CEO and the Telkom CEO.

Briefing by SITA
Dr Setumo Mohapi, CEO, spoke to the mandated services SITA had to provide and to the layout of the SITA network. Network disruptions were occurring, because of the layout of the network and SITA had suggested an alternative solution. More than 90 % of the network was copper based and provided by Telkom via a contracted service level agreement. SITA had a Bronze level service agreement with the DHA. For this level, the Mean Time to Respond (MTTR) was 16 hours and it was his view that this service level was too low. SITA had met all service metrics for the period February to July 2016. He then spoke to service centre performance challenges including a lack of diesel, faulty air-conditioning and power failures where UPS systems did not kick in. SITA's vulnerabilities had been impacted on by industrial action at Telkom. He spoke to service level improvement initiatives as well as alternative methods of accessing the core network. This would be through the use of a Ku band satellite link. He did not speak to the rest of the written presentation which covered non network services.

Discussion
Ms Kubayi said more interaction between SITA and the DHA was needed.

Prof Hlengiwe Mkhize, Deputy Minister of Telecommunications, confirmed what Mr Apleni had said and there was a close monitoring of the interaction between the DG and SITA. She was grateful for Mr Mohapi because he had put systems in place and identified challenges which were being attended to and she fully supported him. SITA had approached Cabinet to independently source their own technology. Various Departments had interacted with Mr Mohapi and had identified their challenges. This would be compiled into a report for Cabinet which would include SITA's proposed interventions. The problem was that there was pressure because of the broadband rollout and SITA needed to move faster to be able to carry the information load that would be captured.

Mr M Hoosen (DA) said the service SITA provided to DHA had not been working for many years. It was embarrassing to hear the problems related by SITA, like lack of diesel to power generators or air conditioning that was not working. If the systems were offline, it affected everything the DHA did and consequently service delivery to their clients. The DHA should change its service provider. He asked when the Department would terminate its contract with SITA.

Ms M Shinn (DA) said government departments were obliged to work through SITA. She asked if it was not time to lobby for change to the legislation that obliged departments to work through SITA? She asked the DHA whether her impression was correct that the major problem was network downtime, not the hardware in the offices. Why was Telkom a major supplier to SITA? Why were there not other network providers?

Ms H Hlophe (EFF) asked Mr Apleni if disruptions were experienced at the networks it had at banks and whether the disruptions were different from the ones at the DHA offices. The solutions proposed by SITA had not been tested yet.

Ms D Tsotetsi (ANC) asked the Department about the registration of certificates where, at times, people's names were spelt incorrectly on their ID Document or birth certificate. What processes took place in providing these documents? What were the minimum and maximum response times to network failures? Was there any plan to address the backlog created by the failure of the networks?

Ms D Raphuti (ANC) said Bathopele prinicples were being compromised and it reflected badly on the DHA. S Mr Apleni spoke about the lack of required expertise to manage the hosted systems. What were the meanings of abbreviations like NPR?

With regard to the current copper wire infrastructure, Ms L Maseko (ANC) asked how far Telkom had come in changing to optic fibre. She was concerned about negligence, like the lack of diesel. There needed to be recourse for such negligence. She asked what the installation costs of the solutions offered by SITA would be.

Ms T Kenye (ANC) asked if SITA had calculated the costs involved and how it would impact on SITA's budget. Regarding the transition that SITA was talking about, she asked if DHA had the capacity to manage the network services provided by other network providers.

Ms N Ndongeni (ANC) asked whether there were no generators where there had been power failures. She was confused to hear about SARS, Telkom and SITA having networks, could this be explained.

Mr D Gumede (ANC) said the DHA should place client satisfaction at the centre of its efforts. The modernisation programme of DHA was central to this. It was not clear whether the resources and capacity of the DHA was optimal.

Mr C Mackenzie (DA) said SITA's problems were legacy problems which the current CEO had inherited. He wanted a time frame for the solutions that had been tabled by SITA and asked whether he was correct in saying that the problems were hardware rather than skills or software problems. He asked the DHA whether the biometric systems were at all border crossings. If not, what percentage did have systems.

Mr E Siwela (ANC) said it might be too simplistic to think that changing the network provider might solve the problem. He asked the Department how certain it was that bringing a new service provider would solve the problem. He asked SITA what they were doing to mitigate the environmental factors that impacted on the functioning of the DHA offices.

Ms Kenye asked if SITA had calculated the costs involved and how it would impact on SITA's budget. Regarding the transition that SITA was talking about, she asked if DHA had the capacity to manage the network services provided by other network providers.

Ms Kubayi acknowledged that it was the challenge of providing services. SITA, historically, had several challenges but the Committee had started to see changes and a stabilisation of the organisation through the appointments of the CEO and CFO. The CEO had moved from Sentech. A solution needed to be found to assist both SITA and DHA. It was imperative for SITA to move faster because of broadband rollout. She had asked SITA for a detailed report by the following month on how SITA would resolve each government department's issues so that the Committee could monitor this. She was concerned that some of the issues SITA faced were not within its ambit to change and how this was going to be dealt with, like for example. if copper cables were stolen. What agreements did it have with service providers and how would such situations be dealt with?

Mr B Mashile (ANC) said it was accepted that the DHA was experiencing downtime but that it could not afford this downtime. The current infrastructure arrangement of SITA was not satisfying DHA. The SITA SLA with DHA was non-existent because it depended on its own SLA with other bodies. Hence the question arose as to how SITA could ensure the DHA did not experience downtime. The downtime meant that the period that the green ID book was in use would be lengthened and the aim of reducing paper flow would not be achieved.

Mr Apleni said that the DHA was only following government protocol in bringing attention to the matter. It was not saying it wanted to leave SITA permanently, it only wanted to source alternative suppliers until matters involving SITA had been sorted out. Banks used the same network but used microwave transmission, not copper cable.  The DHA would be checking whether the microwave transmission would present problems in the rainy season.

Regarding Ms Tsotetsi's question on birth certificates, the DHA's solution was to have a paperless system. A paper based system could create problems and live capture eliminated problems. The DHA was all about modernisation and networks were the key issue in this approach.

The NPR stood for National Population Register and MCS stood for Movement Control Systems.

The costs that were being looked at by the DHA were the cost to the client to get to a DHA office but not getting the service they came for.

The DHA was starting the biometrics roll-out at the big airports and it would ultimately be rolled out to all border crossings.

Mr Apleni said the issue of rural communities was important to the DHA and that was why mobile solutions were important. The DHA wanted offices on wheels so that rural areas could access services. The DHA wanted the same service whether it was in a rural or urban setting.

Dr Mohapi said that what the DHA experienced was also a reflection of what other departments were experiencing. It was imperative that SITA worked because if it did not then it impacted negatively on the State.

SITA did not appoint a service provider individually, SITA was obliged to tender in the open market.

The Telkom SLA was a failure based on the links SITA had had with them but SITA was under legal contractual obligations to work with them.

Regarding SLAs, he said that the Platinum SLA was more expensive than the Gold SLA and that, in turn, was more expensive than the Bronze SLA. He was not sure whether the different options had been explained to the DHA clearly and whether there had been any motivation why a Platinum SLA was better than Bronze. He had insisted that the specification should be Platinum in relation to the banks and government departments should insist on service levels that were commensurate with the service that the public expected. He had recommended that all service level agreements should, as a minimum, be Gold.

He apologised that the proposed solution had not been tested yet. Redundancy would be at the office environment level. Negligence would not be tolerated anymore and there was now consequence management in place

There were enough staff members and capacity to manage switching centres, but people had been augmented with service providers. He was at the point where he understood the limitations of the SITA environment and he knew where it was weak and its strengths.

Mr Apleni said the MCS was running on a SARS network and there was no problem. SARS was not a network provider.

Telkom provided the last mile from cloud to the offices and this was not provided for by DHA, but by SITA.

Mr Zeth Malele, board member, pleaded for time for SITA to implement its proposed solutions. The plans had been budgeted for and approved by the board. The question relating to SARS was a legacy issue and not of SITA's doing.

On why Telkom was so dominant in the rollout, it was also a legacy issue and the country was in the middle of the liberalisation of telecommunications space so this issue had to be dealt with so that there was not one dominant player. SITA needed time to diversify the risk to other telecommunication suppliers.

The Deputy Minister said the issues that were urgent had been identified and there had been interactions with other departments. The meeting's discussion pointed to areas that still needed to be looked at, like capacity issues and the ability to make a timeous turnaround. If the CEO committed to an alternative solution, he needed to be given the opportunity and the report they would be submitting would be closely monitored so as not to allow the gap in service to increase.

Regarding the infrastructure bill, the DTPS was responsible for the relevant SIP and some of the discussions would have to be looked at in that forum as well.

Mr A Figlan (DA) asked if SITA had a central point where problems could be detected. DHA officials could not explain to people why they could not get unabridged birth certificates and marriage certificates.

Mr Mackenzie said biometrics would not work if only some ports had the system. What percentage of ports had biometric systems and what was the time frame for all to have them?

Ms Tsotetsi said she could not measure progress without time frames. What was the time frame for implementation and was there the staff capacity for implementing the recommendations? Was there a response to a letter that had been written to the Minister? What was agreed upon in the meetings that were held with stakeholders?

Ms Raphuti said that the SITA board had not mentioned a timeframe for the resolution of the problems. What were the cost implications of using alternative service providers?

Ms Shinn asked if an impact assessment had been done on SITA's satellite solution. How would it affect DHA and other departments, what was the cost of the satellite network and would the solution be shared with other government departments? Would the report going to Cabinet be made public?

Ms Kenye was concerned that generators were running out of diesel. Did SITA have clear power supply and monitoring strategies? Was there a clear development strategy so that the network instability did not happen in future?

Ms Maseko asked what the difference between the Platinum and the Bronze SLA was.

Mr Mashile questioned whether the customer could afford the time before services provision was sorted out.

Mr Apleni said the DHA had implemented a contact centre which was different from a call centre. The contact centre would be launched in October and would allow one to find out at what stage of the process a birth certificate, for example, was.

Biometric systems had been rolled out to OR Tambo, Cape Town, Lanseria and King Shaka airports. This year six land ports and two sea ports would be done and in 2017/18 the rest of the ports would be done.

He would check on the letter to the Minister.  

On time frames, Dr Mohapi said it would be extracted from the work to be done with the departments. That forum was started by the DTPS. The first meeting was the previous Friday and they had resolved to meet until a document was generated which would be submitted to the Minister of Telecommunications and Postal Services. The document would clearly separate short and medium term goals.as well as distinguish between strategic and operational matters. Flowing from this he would be able to make more considered estimates regarding time frames.

Telkom was a service provider because of historical reasons, however when the banks were connected, SITA had gone to the market and the service provider to the banks was not Telkom but Vodacom, so diversity was being introduced. And competitive prices were solicited.

SITA was expediting the installation of environmental alarms and was proposing the installation of these alarms in all departments.

The Platinum level had a two-hour response time, Gold was four hours, Bronze was 16 hours and Platinum Plus was a half an hour response time.

Ms Kubayi said the Committee needed to monitor the SITA monthly because it was a critical matter. She understood that Cabinet was dealing with the matter but the Committees would monitor on the short term implementation. She hoped the board was tracking the network issues of government departments.

Mr Zukile Nomvete, Acting Chairperson of the SITA board, said the board was fully behind the CEO efforts. SITA had looked at how other SITAs provided services and wanted to build a SITA that was a solution provider to government.

The meeting was adjourned.