The State Information Technology Agency (SITA) came under fire on Wednesday for being without a proper IT system for record keeping that would ensure it easily provides information for auditing purposes.
This emerged when SITA appeared before the standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) to account for its 2023-24 audit outcomes.
SITA received a disclaimer of audit opinion after Auditor-General Tsakani Maluleke was unable to obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence to provide a basis for an audit opinion on SITA’s financial statements.
Maluleke had found significant internal control deficiencies that resulted in the basis for the disclaimer of opinion and the material findings on compliance with legislation.
Briefing Scopa, acting managing director Gopal Reddy said they were ensuring that there was proper oversight through the management committee and board.
“We are strengthening internal controls, capacitating key environments and reviewing the business processes,” Reddy said.
Reddy also said they have looked at the A-G’s report and put in place an action plan after identifying root causes that led to the disclaimer.
“We have tailor-made an improvement plan,” he said, adding that there were 192 findings.
However, MK Party MP Thalente Kubheka wanted to know the root causes of the internal control deficiencies.
Former board member and audit committee chairperson Nolitha Pietersen noted that there had been challenges such as vacancies, including the position of chief audit executive for the longest time.
“We had people acting, people more junior in audit. Some of the weaknesses stemmed from there,” Pietersen said.
She blamed the failure to identify the deficiencies to instability within the board and administration over the past five years, as a recipe for disaster.
But, Scopa chairperson Songezo Zibi said the problem at SITA appeared to be “non existent record keeping”.
“There is an inability to provide reliable information. Did this ever come up as an issue for the executive committee and the board,” asked Zibi.
In response, Reddy said it was not a matter of record keeping, but the information was stored and kept in a fragmented manner.
CEO Molatlhegi Kgauwe said the problem was that the A-G provided them with three days to provide information and they could not meet the deadline.
“What we have done is to bring documentation together into one central repository, more on expenses. We have got a system we developed to make it easier for us to provide the requested information within three days,” Kgauwe said.
But, Zibi insisted that the failure by SITA to provide information pointed to systemic problems.
“What I am seeing is that there is lack information that is kept and synthesized.
It is defective. There is no audit plan and consequently when information is required nobody is able to provide it,” said Zibi.
Kubheka echoed Zibi’s sentiments, saying he was dumbfounded that the IT department could not provide the required information to the A-G within 72 hours.
“All the information should be at click of the button,” Kubheka said.
Kgauwe noted that there was an expectation that SITA should be the best of the best.
