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- SITA acting MD, Molatlhegi Kgauwe, says an interim audit by the AG would help the entity to self-correct.
- Wasteful expenditure was one of the accounting faults flagged by the AG in the agency's 2021/22 year.
- SITA has been without a permanent CEO since 2019, but a process to fill the role has already begun.
- For more financial news, go to the News24 Business front page.
The State Information Technology Agency (SITA), which has been hit by two consecutive qualified audits in its annual reports, has departed from the norm and asked the office of the Auditor-General to give its opinion on its interim results.
SITA has not had a permanent CEO since 2019, and its acting MD, Molatlhegi Kgauwe, was plucked from his chief financial officer role to take the reins.
The AG report presented to Parliament's portfolio committee in October showed that the SITA had, in the 2022 financial year, incurred R286 million in irregular expenditure.
Some of the breaches flagged in procurement processes were services rendered after contract expiry date, invalid extension of contracts, payments made to suppliers which were not tax compliant at the date of the award.
Kgauwe, who was in appointed to the acting MD position in July, said re-skilling of staff in terms of compliance and latest accounting standards would be conducted as the company aims to turn a new leaf on its affairs.
"We are implementing an audit action plan, which includes a number of remedial interventions. Part of our plan is a request to the Auditor-General to conduct an interim audit on us," he said.
SITA is administered by the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies (DCDT), and is among a number of entities under the portfolio that have achieved qualified audits, such as the Post Office, SABC and Sentech.
The office of the Auditor-General normally conducts audits on state entities once a year, but Kgauwe said the scrutiny of its books is a mechanism meant to help it identify red flags early and then address them."The AG is finalising the details, but we expect they should come in early in the year," Kgauwe said.
SITA is tasked with proving information technology systems to government departments and other organs of state, but Kgauwe said competing interests and reduced spending by public service entities had seen technology take a back seat, resulting in unrealised revenue.
In May 2021, former DCDT minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams told Parliament's Standing Committee on Public Accounts that inefficiencies at SITA had resulted in some departments seeking exemptions to procure services elsewhere, such as the departments of police and home affairs.
Leadership instability at the top, according to Kgauwe, has somewhat contributed to the challenges the organisation faces.
"When you look at our performance against our planned objectives for the previous financial year, which ended in March 2022, we were almost 60% below our plans."
In March 2019, Setumo Mohapi, who was widely accredited for undertaking a turnaround of the agency - which has seen legislators in Parliament calling for its closure - resigned after four years on the role. Ntutule Tshenye then took over as interim CEO, but only for a short time.
In December 2019, amid allegations of corruption and inability to deliver on its mandate, Ndabeni-Abrahams appointed Luvuyo Keyise as executive caretaker for 24 months.
When Keyise's term ended in January 2022, Cabinet extended his contract for another six months to the end of July.
Kgauwe said the process of finding a permanent CEO was already under way and a new appointment could be expected to be made in the coming months.
"That would bring some stability and I will get to go back to my finance role."
