After eight years and R822 million spent on licence fees and maintenance, all the government has to show for its plan to digitise the state's human resource and supply chain systems is a single "prototype" computer in Pietermaritzburg.
In 2015, the Treasury issued a contract to US tech giant Oracle to overhaul the government's outdated and clunky financial management systems. All the state's payroll, supply chain, finance and HR systems would be combined into one.
But the system has not been implemented at any government department. This means entities like the Department of Public Service and Administration still need to review thousands of paper applications when they want to appoint someone to a new job.