Question NW1853 to the Minister in the Presidency

Reply:

Stats SA entered into a business agreement with SITA as state Information and Communication Technology (ICT) agency through the SITA Act No. 88 of 1998. As per the SITA’s Act, all departments are mandated to go through SITA’s procurement processes for ICT related goods and services.

The current business contract with between SITA and Stats SA started in July 2022 and will be in force till June 2025., while the service level agreement started in August 2023 and will expire in July 2026.

Stats SA is heavily reliant on ICT infrastructure for data collection, processing, analysis and dissemination. The department has invested internally on ICT infrastructure and services for to enable these key business processes. SITA is supposed to be our strategic partner for services such as network connectivity, transversal systems (Persal, BAS and LOGIS), internet connection and hosting services amongst others. These are fundamental services that enable the organisation to meet its strategic objectives.

However, the SITA Act, stipulates that not all procurements of ICT goods and services are mandated to go through SITA processes, some of the goods and services that are optional and therefore can be obtained through other supply chain procedures.

Herewith is a summary of both mandatory and optional services that may be acquired from or through SITA:

MANDATORY services that MUST be provided to the National and Provincial departments by SITA:

• Provide or maintain a private telecommunications network;
• Provide and maintain transversal and department specific information systems;
• Provide data-processing or associated services for transversal or departmental specific information systems;
• Provide sets of standards for interoperability;
• Set standards for information security standards;
• Eliminate duplication;
• Leverage economies of scale; and
• Procurement of goods and services.

OPTIONAL services that may be provided to the national and provincial departments by SITA, but the departments have the flexibility to acquire these services elsewhere.

• Training on ICT or information systems;
• Applications and software development;
• Maintenance of software and infrastructure;
• Data processing for departmental specific applications;
• Technology or business advice on ICT related matters;
• Research and development; and
• Selling and provision of authentication products.

As reflected above, SITA’s mandatory services, cover critical services such as networking and transversal systems which are core to the functioning of Stats SA, acquiring these services from a private service provider will attract very high initial capital costs. Furthermore, services such as Persal are quite complex and expensive when acquired externally. Stats SA’s financial situation does not make provision for any additional spending. However, Stats SA may benefit from an exemption from SITA Act on the following 2 services:

1. Procurement of goods and services - their turn-around time on this one are quite bad and this affect us negatively.
2. Internet services - our ICT division will embark on a full technical investigation together with related cost-benefit analysis.

On optional services, most of these services are already provided internally or acquired outside of SITA.

As reported previously, Stats SA has on numerous occasions engaged with SITA and escalated these technical challenges but even after the escalation SITA did not adhere to their own State Information Technology Agency Act 1998 General regulations on Procurement Guidelines.

Risenga Maluleke

Statistician-General

Date: 11 November 2024

____________________________

Hon. Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, MP

Minister in the Presidency

Date: